Number Theory: Can CPI (M) recover from its Kerala debacle?

While the LDF has enjoyed a vote share premium in assembly elections in the past too, this dominance reached a new high in the 2021 assembly elections.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won its first Lok Sabha seat in the state of Kerala in the summer’s Lok Sabha elections. To be sure, the overall results in the state, in terms of a dominance of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and a poor showing by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) are not very different from the 2019 elections. So, is the BJP’s victory in Thrissur just a one-off development

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan (ANI)

Can CPI (M) recover from its Kerala debacle?

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  Kerala has slowly been shifting away from a bipolar polity in Lok Sabha elections

  For many decades, politics in Kerala has been a battle between the Congress and CPI (M)-led UDF and LDF respectively. However, the state finally seems to be moving away from this bipolar arrangement . A look at median ENOP of Effective Number of Parties in every Lok Sabha election in Kerala shows this clearly. ENOP is defined as the reciprocal of the sum of squares of the vote share of all candidates in a constituency and a higher value denotes greater political fragmentation in the elections. For example, if there are four candidates in a constituency and they get 26%, 25%, 25% and 24% votes, the ENOP value will be 3.99. If these vote share numbers change to 50%, 45%, 3%, and 2% ENOP will fall to 2.2. Kerala’s median ENOP did not even cross 2.2 until the 1980 Lok Sabha elections. It increased very slowly to cross the 2.5 mark in the 2004 elections before falling in 2009 once again. But it has increased in every election since 2014 and reached an all-time high of 2.8 in the 2024 elections. The state is now almost at the cusp of a triangular contest at the constituency level. This point becomes clearer if one looks at the BJP-led NDA’s PC-wise vote share performance in the state in the last three Lok Sabha elections. Its median vote share has increased from 9.2% in 2014 to 14.6% and 17.2% in 2019 and 2024.
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  An even bigger story is the rise in “anti-left” vote in Kerala

  LDF’s vote share in Kerala in the 2024 elections – this includes 15 CPI (M) candidates, 4 CPI candidates and one Kerala Congress (M) candidate – is 33.4%, the lowest this number has been since 1984, which was the first election for the alliance as it exists today. LDF’s 2024 vote share is 1.7 percentage points lower than even its 2019 election performance which was fought in the backdrop of a massive backlash against the LDF government taking a stand in favour of a Supreme Court order asking that women of menstruating age be allowed in the Hindu Shrine of Sabarimala. The share of explicitly anti-left votes in the state -- UDF and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) combined -- has increased from 52.9% in 2014 to 64.3% in 2024. The CPI (M) has often argued in Kerala in the past that supporters of Congress and BJP vote for each other’s candidates to defeat left candidates. The trend of rising anti-left and falling left votes suggests that at least in these elections the story is one of ideological attrition from the left’s wider constituency than tactical voting by its opponents.
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  Can LDF repeat its recovery between the 2019 Lok Sabha and 2021 assembly elections?

  To be sure, the LDF’s track record in Lok Sabha elections has never really been impressive . The only time it managed to surge ahead of the UDF was in 2004 when it won 18 out of the 20 PCs in the state. Where the LDF has really done well is to consolidate its support in assembly elections . In the 2021 assembly elections, the LDF’s vote share was a massive 10.8 percentage point higher than its 2019 Lok Sabha performance which allowed it to win a seat share of 71% in the state assembly. While the LDF has enjoyed a vote share premium in assembly elections in the past too, this dominance reached a new high in the 2021 assembly elections. Can the LDF replicate this feat in 2026 assembly elections? This is the most important political question in the state now. The leadership of the CPI (M) has acknowledged the challenge. “The Polit Bureau expressed disappointment at the CPI(M)’s performance, especially in Kerala. An in-depth introspection will be undertaken by the Party on the basis of the reviews conducted by the respective state Party units”, the CPI (M) said in a statement. It remains to be seen whether the LDF can get its act together in time.