Left out: The communist parties in India have lost their relevance

In Tripura, for instance, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar's personal values of legendary honesty and conspicuous "poverty", though admirable, scarcely resonate with the aspirational millennial generation

The 21st century has not been kind to India’s Left parties. In 2009, they were voted out of power in West Bengal after 32 years in office and have been reduced to a nonentity since in less than 10 years. In the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, they recorded their worst performance since India’s first general election, winning just 12 seats, down from a high of 59 seats a decade earlier. Tripura is the latest in this serial debacle, with the Left losing power after 25 years of rule last week; it managed to win just 16 seats in the