Tie-up with Cong didn't work in WB, Kerala results resounding:

Communist Party of India (CPI) today conceded that the West Bengal Assembly poll verdict was a "setback" to the Left and that its alliance with the Congress did not work while terming the LDF victory in Kerala as something "beyond expectations".
"I think this understanding between the Left and the Congress (in West Bengal) did not work. We could together get only 35-36 per cent of votes. Somehow, I think the votes might not have got transferred," CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy told PTI here.
He termed the outcome in the state as "negative result" and said the Left would have to go in for a serious review of it.

"We have to go for a serious review...Why, in spite of a joint effort, it did not give confidence to the people of West Bengal to bring the alternative despite misrule, corruption and arrogance of Mamata Banerjee. We feel it's a negative result and setback to the Left and West Bengal," he said.
He said the electoral adjustment between the Left and the Congress was a "limited understanding" with a limited purpose of defeating Mamata Banerjee, who today returned to power with a thumping majority.
"That's what we tried but it did not work," Reddy said.

Asked if he thought it was a mistake to join hands with the Congress, he said he did not think so.

"I can't come to such a conclusion immediately. We have to discuss as to what went wrong. I am not ready to rush to a conclusion that it was a political mistake. It did not work. Why it did not work, we have to review," Reddy said.
About the landslide victory of the LDF in Kerala over the Congress-led UDF, Reddy said "It's more than expected".
He said he was in Kerala for four-five days during the last leg of campaigning and expected the LDF to get a majority but not a "very big majority".
"But 91 seats... This is quite unexpected, rarely Kerala gives such type of verdict. In fact, Congress, Muslim League and Kerala Congress groups (UDF)...It's a formidable alliance in Kerala," Reddy said.

On BJP opening its account in Kerala with senior leader O Rajagopal winning from the Nemom seat, he said: "It does not make much of a difference".
Reddy said BJP generally got eight to 10 per cent of votes in Kerala in the last few years, but the party would not "advance" and would not play a key role in Kerala politics.
"They (BJP) spent huge amounts of money and polluted socially and politically situation in Kerala," he said.