After six years, CPI(M) shows some signs of recovery in WB

With a change in leadership and an ongoing massive rectification drive, the CPI(M) for the first time in six years is showing some signs of recovery in West Bengal, which it ruled for over 35 years till its humiliating defeat in 2011.

The CPI(M), the largest constituent of Left Front, has been able to arrest the continuous erosion in its support base since the 2009 Lok Sabha election. It has not only retained but also managed to increase marginally its vote share in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) election held last month.

The KMC poll had been of immense significance for CPI(M), which was staring at the prospects of losing the main Opposition status to BJP, which was fast gaining ground in Bengal since the last Lok Sabha election.

After its worst ever performance in 2014 Lok Sabha poll, when CPI(M) secured nearly 23 per cent votes, it managed to retain its vote share and increase it by more than one percentage point to over 24 per cent in the KMC election.

"Since 2008, we have been facing a downslide and it continued till 2014, when the vote share came down to nearly 23 per cent. It is really a good sign that we have been able to arrest this poll haemorrhage and increase our vote share by one per cent in KMC poll. It will help us in future as it will give a boost to the rank and file," newly-elected CPI(M) state secretary and Politburo member Surya Kanta Mishra told PTI.

Though in 2008 the Left first witnessed its electoral slide after it lost zila parishads in East Midnapore, the cradle of Nandigram anti-land acquisition movement, and South 24-Parganas to the Trinamool Congress, it was in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls that the Left Front got a massive blow with the Congress-Trinamool combine winning 27 of the state's 42 seats.

Since, the Left's vote share has gone down in each and every election that followed. In 2009, the Left secured 43 per cent votes, while in 2011 Assembly polls it fell to 40 per cent and in the 2013 panchayat polls it went down further.

The lowest point in CPI(M) came in 2014, when its vote share came down to nearly 23 per cent with the party securing just two seats in Lok Sabha.

The loss in CPI(M)'s vote share has also fueled speculation of the Red Brigade losing its Opposition status to BJP, which secured 18 per cent votes in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

"After 2014, a large section of media had completely erased us as opposition but the results have shown that we are still the only alternative to the misrule of the Trinamool Congress. The communal polarisation that BJP and TMC were trying to create failed to fetch results," CPI(M) Politburo member Mohammed Salim told PTI.