Can Vijayan give the Left a golden jubilee present | Number Theory

While the communists won their 1st state polls in Kerala in 1957, they retained power in WB continuously between 1977 and 2011 & in Tripura from 1993 to 2018

If the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) were to retain power in the forthcoming elections in Kerala, Indian communists would achieve an important feat. They would have been in power in at least one Indian state for 50 consecutive years in 2027. While the communists won their first state election in Kerala in 1957, they retained power in West Bengal continuously between 1977 and 2011 and in Tripura from 1993 to 2018. Kerala is the communists’ last bastion after they were completely marginalised (not even an MLA) in their erstwhile stronghold of West Bengal. Here are three charts which explain the challenge facing Vijayan and his comrades.

PTI/File

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  Vijayan winning the 2026 elections in Kerala will make him a record breaker in the state and put him in an elite club of chief ministers in the country

  When Kerala re-elected the LDF to power in 2021, it broke a 40-year-long tradition of alternating power between the CPI (M)-led LDF and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF). If the LDF were to win the 2026 elections as well, it would be unprecedented in the state’s history. In fact, HT’s database of all Indian chief ministers shows that only 23 chief ministers in the country have managed to win power for at least a second consecutive time after assuming office. Only Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal from this elite club is currently holding office as chief minister. See Chart 1: List of chief ministers who have won a third consecutive term
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  Vijayan is already among the oldest chief ministers to have completed at least one full-term in India

  Born on March 21, 1944, Vijayan is already 82 years and 4 days old. This makes him the oldest serving chief minister of a major state in the country today. To be sure, nine chief ministers have been older while in office than Vijayan is right now. One of them, VS Achuthanandan, was Vijayan’s own comrade from Kerala and served as the party’s chief minister before Vijayan. The CPI (M)’s situation in the state, in a way, explains its dilemma. It is a party committed to radical politics, but it has to bank on an entrenched, really old leadership to unify its ranks and put its best political foot forward. See Chart 2: oldest chief ministers
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  The CPI (M) will be hoping for a regional endorsement of Vijayan’s governance model despite its negation in the national elections

  One reason why the 2021 results were surprising in Kerala was that the LDF managed a drastic turnaround from its 2019 Lok Sabha election debacle in the state. The 2019 rout for the CPI (M) led LDF was also attributed to the backlash against it for supporting the entry of menstruating-age women in the Hindu shrine of Sabarimala after a Supreme Court order. The 2021 comeback was seen as a result of a tactical withdrawal from the Sabarimala controversy after a Supreme Court stay – the case is being reheard by a constitution bench now – and effective delivery of welfare benefits to the state’s poor during the pandemic. Vijayan’s governance model over the last decade has focused more on welfare provisioning along with claims such as the eradication of extreme poverty from the state. However, these efforts were not enough to revive the LDF’s performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which the UDF won easily. Whether the LDF, under Vijayan, bucks the national trend once again in Kerala, is the most important question as far as this election is concerned. See Chart 3: assembly and LS seat shares in Kerala
• Yet another win in Kerala, if it happens, will keep the communists as a party of governance in the country, even though Kerala’s welfare provisioning model has large bipartisan consensus nationally, rather than being communist exceptionalism. A loss, will put the communists in a situation they have not been in the last 50 years. While the comrades in Kerala could try to justify the loss by attributing it to established historical pattern of power changing hands in the state, what will be different this time is the fact that the BJP is trying very hard to establish itself as a third player in the state’s politics, and the historical bipolar nature of Kerala’s polity cannot be taken for granted anymore. To be sure, yet another loss for the Congress would also put its credibility as an opponent to the communists under serious threat and could make them vulnerable to BJP’s attacks going forward.