The Left in India is confronting one of its most introspective moments in decades. From West Bengal, where the CPI(M) once ran the world’s longest-elected communist government, to Tripura, where a 25-year rule ended abruptly in 2018, the party is grappling with a pattern of shrinking vote shares, organisational drift and confused political messaging. Even Kerala, its last remaining stronghold, is showing signs of strain ahead of the 2026 Assembly election.Kerala now carries the burden of being the Left’s last functioning model. But even there, anti-incumbency pressures, the BJP’s new inroads, and debates around the CPI(M)’s outreach to caste-community organisations and its partnership with big private capital, such as the Vizhinjam port, have raised questions about direction and durability. To understand whether the communists can reinvent themselves, it’s necessary to trace how they lost ground elsewhere, starting with West Bengal, where the unraveling first became unmistakable.
West Bengal: CPM loses ground after 3-decade rule
The CPI(M) today occupies only a fraction of the political space it once dominated in West Bengal, a state it governed from 1977 to 2011. Its diminished presence became unmistakable during the 2016 Assembly elections, when the party won just 26 seats—down from 40 in 2011—despite contesting in alliance with the Congress. Even its veteran leader Surjya Kant Mishra lost the Narayangarh seat, which he had held since 1991, underscoring the extent of its organisational decline. A key factor behind this fall was the erosion of trust among the rural population that had powered the Left Front for decades. The party’s early achievements in land reforms, such as Operation Barga, had once strengthened its support base. But later conflicts, notably the police firing in Nandigram in 2007, in which 14 villagers were killed during protests against land acquisition for a chemical hub, reversed much of that goodwill. Similarly, the Singur land acquisition dispute in 2006–08, where many farmers protested the takeover of farmland for the Tata Nano project, created a perception that the party no longer prioritised agrarian interests, and the TMC capitalised on it.When asked if TMC had an edge over CPM when it came to the regional connect, Karat invoked Jyoti Basu’s politics saying, “As far as regional connect is concerned it was the Left led by then chief minister Jyoti Basu who raised the issue of central discrimination against Bengal.” The CPM also struggled with an internal crisis of ideological clarity. While critics had long claimed the Left was too rigid, Bengal’s voters reacted negatively when the party appeared to dilute its ideology. The most prominent example was the 2016 Congress–CPM alliance, which confused sections of its traditional cadre and supporters, who had seen the Congress as the CPM’s principal opponent for decades. The results reflected this discomfort: the CPM’s vote share collapsed to 19.7%, while the Congress increased its seat tally from 42 to 44.
Why Left lost Bengal but not Kerala?
A comparison with Kerala highlighted the consequences of these strategic choices. In the same year that the CPM slipped further in Bengal, the party’s Kerala unit refused to ally with the Congress or BJP and maintained a clear ideological line. The result was a decisive victory: the Left Democratic Front won 85 seats, up from 64 in 2011. The contrast suggested that voters respond better when the Left presents a consistent political identity. In West Bengal, the CPM’s decline was driven not only by organisational fatigue but also by policy choices and alliances that contradicted its own political foundations.
The minority shift
“Muslims have been an organic part of the communist party in Bengal including among the founders of the party,” CPM leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Brinda Karat told TOI.In the years when the Left cemented its dominance in Bengal, its leadership ranks were still largely occupied by upper-caste Hindu leaders, the Banerjees, Moitras and Chowdhurys, even in Muslim-majority regions like Malda and Murshidabad. Muslim leaders like Hashim Abdul Halim, Mostafa Bin Kasem and Abdur Rezzak Mollah did establish themselves. But the Left fielded its highest Muslim candidates only in 2011, which is 57.When asked the contrast between inclusion of caste groups in Kerala and Bengal CPM, Karat said: “Bengal was the most caste ridden society. Communists fought the caste system and succeeded in eliminating the worst untouchability practices that exist in north India . SCs were the forefront right holders under the Left regime. How do you think despite every single barrier the left govt was re-elected six times.”
End of CPM’s 25-year rule in Tripura
The CPM’s defeat in Tripura in 2018 ended a 25-year run for the Left in one of its strongest bastions and triggered an immediate internal debate on the party’s political direction. The scale of the loss was striking: the BJP, which had less than a 2% vote share in the state earlier, swept to power, while the Left Front collapsed despite securing 46% of the vote. The setback raised questions about the party’s strategy and its ability to read shifting political currents on the ground.The Left in Tripura lost mainly because the BJP built a strong anti-Left wave, captured anti-incumbency sentiment, and successfully mobilised tribal and Congress voters, eroding the Left’s social base and seat share despite a still-high vote share.The Left had relied heavily on tribal support, but the BJP’s alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT) helped it make major inroads among tribal voters, weakening the Left in its strongholds.
CPM vs CPM
A major point of contention inside the CPM has been whether the party should build broader alliances to counter the BJP. Leaders aligned with the then general secretary Sitaram Yechury argued that the Left failed to unite anti-BJP votes in Tripura, pointing out that the Congress still had a residual voter base that could have been consolidated. They cited the example of the Congress vote dropping sharply—from 36% to just 2%—much of which shifted to the BJP, suggesting that the absence of a joint front allowed the BJP to make direct gains. The opposing camp, led by former general secretary Prakash Karat, rejected this assessment. They argued that the BJP’s rise was driven mainly by the defection of Congress leaders to the BJP, rather than a failure of alliance-building. Leaders like Brinda Karat noted that the Left remained the largest single vote-getter with 46% and maintained that the Congress had ceased to be a meaningful anti-BJP force. For this faction, the loss reflected anti-incumbency and organisational erosion rather than a strategic error in refusing an understanding with the Congress. Beyond the internal dispute, Left leaders and allies acknowledged a deeper issue: a growing disconnect between the CPM and ground realities in Tripura. The CPI’s D Raja pointed to the party’s inability to “adapt to changing times,” noting that the rise of the BJP-RSS combine required a more flexible strategy. Several insiders admitted privately that while the Left continued to debate alliances at the national level, it failed to recognise the scale of political shifts unfolding in its own stronghold.
All eyes on Kerala
The CPI(M) goes into the 2026 Kerala Assembly election with several big vulnerabilities. Strong anti-incumbency and governance fatigue have weighed heavily on the Left. After ten years in power, every price rise, job shortage, service gap or corruption allegation is now attributed directly to the ruling government, erasing the benefit of earlier goodwill. The pattern was already visible in recent Lok Sabha elections, where the Left performed poorly even as the Congress gained ground and the BJP made significant inroads into what was once a largely one-party landscape.In both 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls it won very few of Kerala’s 20 seats while the Congress‑led UDF dominated and the BJP opened its account, showing that the Left’s appeal in Parliament elections is weakening even where it still rules the state.In state politics, the CPI(M)-led LDF won the 2021 Assembly election convincingly and achieved a rare second consecutive term, keeping firm control of the Kerala government.
Left’s pro moves in Kerala
Recently critics argued a deliberate effort by CPI(M) to build closer ties with influential Hindu organisations like the Nair Service Society (NSS), SNDP Yogam (Ezhava organisation), and Dalit outfits such as KPMS, often framed as “social engineering” to strengthen support among Hindu castesMoreover, the Vizhinjam port has become a symbol of the Left’s claim to be a “development‑first” force that can deliver big infrastructure while still calling itself socialist. It signals a strategic shift: the CPI(M) is willing to partner with big private capital and take political risks, betting that a successful transshipment hub will shore up its legitimacy as a modern, growth‑oriented Left government. Go to Source
