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 or symptomatic of a larger political change in the state? Is the CPI (M) on the verge of losing its dominance in the only state where it is in power? Here are three charts which try to answer this question.

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan (ANI)