More signs of the Indian left's gradual but rapid passage into irrelevance came out in the 16th lok Sabha election, but the CPI(M)-led lDF in Kerala improved its position from that of 2009. However, that does not give the State CPI(M) any reason to celebrate as it sits shocked by the defeat of some of its top leaders and the loss of war in certain key constituencies.
The national and State leaderships of the party will carry out preliminary analyses of the reasons behind these humiliating defeats in the course of this week but the committees of the party at various levels in the State have already started collecting feedback from the cadre in the concerned constituencies.
The biggest poll shock the CPI(M) suffered was in Kollam, where MA Baby MlA, the only Politburo member of the party in the electoral fray in entire India, was beaten by a margin of 37,649 votes by NK Premachandran of the RSP, which had left the lDF on March 8 and joined the Congress-led UDF the following day.
The election in Kollam for the CPI(M) was a battle for prestige in several ways. The party and the left had to prove that the departure of RSP was insignificant and it also wanted to teach the former ally a lesson. In a sense, the CPI(M)'s ire was directed more against Premachandran, one of the strongest advocates of the left till March last, than the RSP per se.
The CPI(M) made Baby a candidate in the lok Sabha election, though he was an MlA out of the thought that it should send some important leaders to Parliament as part of its defeated idea that the left might be able to lead the so-called Third Front into power. Baby's defeat in the hands of the "miniscule" RSP has brought unbearable shame to the left, especially the CPI(M).
Asked about the reasons for the defeat of Baby, CPI(M) central committee member VS Achuthanandan said that the party would examine its "lapses and mistakes" in the coming days. "The (Kerala) left has been able to increase its representation in Parliament from four in 2009 to eight in 2014. But we could not cash in on the anti-incumbency sentiment," he added.
The other big defeat that shocked the CPI(M) was that of central committee member A Vijaya Raghavan in Kozhikode, a seat the party had lost to Congress's MK Raghavan in 2009 by a margin of just 838 votes. His candidature also was part of the failed Third Front idea but there was also a feeling that a heavyweight like him could easily beat Congress's Raghavan this time.
"It is obvious that the Marxists failed in gauging the sentiments of the electorate of Kozhikode constituency and district where CPI(M) was not as popular as it was during the Assembly elections of 2011," said a former CPI(M) leader from the region. The result proved this: Congress Raghavan's winning margin rose to 16,883 votes.
The other big shock this election gave to the Marxist party was in the Vadakara constituency which included Onchiyam, where CPI(M) was being looked upon as an incarnation of evil since May 4, 2012, the day a Marxist killer gang brutally murdered rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan as part of an alleged conspiracy hatched by top Marxist leadership.
The CPI(M) entrusted young leader AN Shamseer, a Muslim, to wrest the Vadakara seat from Congress's sitting MP, Mullappally Ramachandran, with the hope that the huge Muslim population in the constituency would ensure Shamseer's victory and with the goal of burying its image of a killer party.
Shamseer did fight well giving the jitters to Mullappally as well as the Congress for a good part of the vote-counting process, but eventually he lost the battle. Mullappally Ramachandran was elected MP for the seventh time by a margin of 3,306 votes crushing the Marxist hopes of proving its "innocence" in the Chandrasekharan murder in the people's court.