For the Left, Tamil Nadu is the new Kerala

CHENNAI: Memes mocking Left parties have often depicted the map of India with the bow-shaped Kerala awash in red. A communist government is still in office in God’s own country, but meme factories referring to the 2019 verdict may now have to shift their focus to neighbouring Tamil Nadu.
All that the Left brigade has to show for representation in the 17th Lok Sabha are five seats (CPM-3, CPI-2), four of them in Tamil Nadu.While victories in Tamil Nadu have come with handsome margins (see graphic), CPM’s lone winner in Kerala A M Ariff won the Alappuzha seat by a margin of barely 10,000 votes. Here, too, Congress candidate Shanimol Usman bagged a majority of votes in five assembly segments, while the remaining two gave Ariff enough to sail through.

Not that the Left has suddenly discovered a hidden support base in the Tamil heartland; nor have they been irrevocably decimated in Kerala, where anti-incumbency and the Sabarimala agitation posed challenges. In TN, the gains came merely from DMK’s willingness to share seats to forge an BJP front. The Left parties were, of course, glad to seize this opportunity.
CPM politburo member and former Kerala minister M A Baby said he is not surprised at the party’s sudden ‘rise’ in TN. “Tamil Nadu is a progressive and secular state. The state has a history of tall Communist leaders like Jeeva and trade union leaders like S P Chithan. Communism will remain alive here as long as people follow Periyar’s teachings,” he said.
G Ramakrishnan, CPM leader in Tamil Nadu, said the DMK respected the Left parties, which made the alliance possible. “It was a winning front from the start,” he said. “The Union government’s policies hurt people, there was much anger around and our alliance won.”
Beneath the apparent camaraderie, however, lies the realisation that Left parties are dependent on the Dravidian giants. Whenever CPM or CPI has sent members to Parliament from Tamil Nadu, it was thanks to DMK or AIADMK. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the 2016 assembly elections, when they were not aligned to either of the Dravidian parties, CPM and CPI drew blank.
Two-day CPI, CPM meet from tomorrow
Reduced to single digit in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Left parties are headed for a two-day huddle on Sunday and Monday to discuss the reasons for the electoral drubbing and the road ahead. “It is true that this is our worst performance yet. So, we will be meeting separately, and then with CPM leaders, to discuss the way forward,” said CPI national secretary D Raja.