3 min readNew DelhiMay 4, 2026 12:24 PM IST
First published on: May 4, 2026 at 12:24 PM IST
It is a political plight generations of comrades have not seen or experienced. With the CPI(M)-led Left government suffering a defeat in Kerala, India will not have a Communist chief minister for the first time in five decades.
The Left bloc was in power in West Bengal from 1977 to 2011. It ruled Tripura from 1993 to 2018. And in Kerala, it returned to power every five years and convincingly broke the trend in 2021. While Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress ended the 34-year Guinness record-worthy Left Front rule in West Bengal in 2011, the 25-year-old Left Front rule in Tripura came to an end with the BJP surprisingly decimating it in 2018. The BJP repeated the feat in 2023.
Last bastion crumbles
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front government in Kerala, which came to power in 2016, was the last Communist outpost that crumbled today. For the first time since 1977, there will be no Communist chief minister in India.
This will further erode the Left bloc’s uncanny political ability to intervene in national politics. All these years, the leaders of the CPM and CPI – along with the RSP and Forward Bloc – ensured that the Left bloc punched much above its electoral heft in national politics. Its political heft came largely from the three states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. The Left now has one MP from these three states.
Pinarayi Vijayan led the LDF government in Kerala for 2 terms
Steady decline since UPA era high
After reaching dizzying heights in 2004, the Left has been in a steady decline at the national level since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The collapse has been dramatic as its electoral footprint shrank and shrank.
The four Left parties had won 59 Lok Sabha seats in 2004, emerging as a major political force, an alternative voice and the architect of the UPA I government. The CPM alone had 43 MPs then. The political discourse during the UPA 1 from 2004 to 2009 largely centred around the Left and its interventions, including its objections to the Indo-US civil nuclear deal and various economic initiatives of the Manmohan Singh government. The Left finally withdrew support to the UPA government in 2008.
Lok Sabha elections the next year saw the Left slumping to 24 seats. It crashed to 10 in 2014 and 5 in 2019. The CPM and CPI have six MPs in Lok Sabha now. The CPI(ML) Liberation has two MPs from Bihar. Of the six CPM-CPI MPs, four won with the help of the DMK in Tamil Nadu and one with the support of the Congress in Rajasthan.
The CPM, led by Pinarayi Vijayan in Kerala, is staring at a big defeat 
Pinarayi Vijayan led the LDF government in Kerala for 2 terms
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