Left faces political eclipse as Kerala trends signal historic setback

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, May 4, 2026: India’s Left parties are staring at an unprecedented political decline, with trends in the Kerala Assembly elections indicating that the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) may lose its last remaining bastion of power.

If the trends hold, it would mark the first time since 1970 that Communist parties will not be in power in any Indian state.

At noon on Monday, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was leading in 83 of Kerala’s 140 Assembly constituencies, while the LDF was ahead in only 42 seats.

The development marks a dramatic fall for a political movement that once wielded significant influence in national politics. In 1996, veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu, then West Bengal Chief Minister for two decades, nearly became Prime Minister as part of the United Front government. However, the CPI(M) Politburo declined to support his candidature, a decision Basu later termed a “historic blunder”.

The Left remained a major force nationally through the 2000s. In 2008, the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government faced a trust vote after the Left Front withdrew support over the Indo-US nuclear deal. At the time, Left parties ruled West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, and held nearly 60 seats in the Lok Sabha.

The Communist movement had a historic rise after Independence. In the first general elections of 1951-52, the Communist Party of India emerged as the largest Opposition group in Parliament. In 1957, Kerala elected the world’s first democratically elected Communist government in a major nation.

The CPI(M)’s strongest era began in West Bengal in 1977, when the Left Front came to power and remained in office uninterrupted for 34 years. Jyoti Basu served as Chief Minister for over 23 years before handing over to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in 2000.

Tripura also became a Left stronghold, with the CPI(M)-led government ruling continuously from 1993 under leaders Dasarath Deb and later Manik Sarkar.

However, the Left’s decline accelerated after 2011, when Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress swept to power in West Bengal on the back of anti-land acquisition protests in Singur and Nandigram. The Left Front’s tally crashed from 235 seats in 2006 to just 62 in the 294-member Assembly.

The BJP then captured Tripura in 2018, ending 25 years of Left rule in the northeastern state. The saffron party won 36 seats in the 60-member Assembly, reducing the Left’s tally from 50 to 16.

Kerala remained the Left’s final stronghold, with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan leading the LDF back to power in 2016 and again in 2021, breaking the state’s long-standing pattern of alternating governments every five years.

But with the latest trends favouring the UDF, the Left now faces the prospect of losing its last state government and entering a new phase of political uncertainty in India.