CPI(M) analyses poll setback after party’s worst performance ever

While praising the stand taken by the party-led LDF government in Kerala on the Sabarimala issue, the CC said that the BJP and the UDF "utilised the situation to create misgivings amongst a section of believers”.

The CC also acknowledged that a section of secular-minded people and minorities did not vote for party, as they felt that the "Congress will be in a better position for the formation of an alternative secular government".

Accepting that it suffered a severe setback, particularly in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, the three-day conclave of the CC, from June 7-9, held at national capital, decided to review the implementation of important decisions regarding the party organisation and its functioning.

"On the basis of this review, which will be completed by the states by the end of August, the future course for strengthening the Party and galvanizing cadres will be undertaken,” the CC said.

Referring to the setbacks in West Bengal and Kerala, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, while addressing media persons, said that "the CPI(M) and the Left Front were not seen as the alternative and this led to a shift in a section of party's traditional votes".

"In West Bengal, elections were held in a highly polarised atmosphere. The media played a big role in building a binary narrative that aided such polarisation between the TMC and the BJP. The communally charged campaign further polarised the voters. There was a high anti-incumbency against the TMC. The Congress’s refusal to accept the Left’s proposal for maximising the pooling of anti-BJP, anti-TMC votes bolstered this binary narrative,” the party said.

While stating that the verdict of the Lok Sabha elections has given the BJP-led NDA a larger number of seats and a larger vote share than it had won in 2014, the CPI(M) said that "the rightwing offensive unleashed by the BJP during the last five years has consolidated with this mandate".

"The BJP could successfully shift, post Pulwama and Balakot, the popular narrative away from the multitude of livelihood issues that the last five years of the NDA government had imposed,” the party said.

The party also said that the new narrative of communal nationalist jingoism, aided by the build-up of the Modi persona through a combination of factors, also helped the BJP.

"Sections of the media partnered such a projection. The elections saw the unprecedented use of money power. Huge amounts were transferred to the BJP through electoral bonds. The role of the Election Commission was a contributory factor,” the CPI(M) said.

The CPI(M) also criticised the opposition parties, the Congress in particular, for failing to put in place the unity of secular opposition parties that was being projected in the run-up to the elections.

"A campaign to safeguard secularism as against the communal offensive was not conducted. Soft Hindutva is not the answer for hardcore Hindutva. The ideological battle between Hindutva and secularism was not forcefully conducted,” the party said.

The CC also noted that the independent strength of the party and its political intervention capacities continue to be weakened.

"The Central Committee discussed various factors that have contributed to the deepening of such a trend and worked out immediate organisational and political steps that would be undertaken by the party to arrest and reverse this decline,” Mr Yechury added.

The CPI(M) said that the party had called for the defeat of the BJP and its allies, increase the strength of the Left in Parliament and for the establishment of an alternative secular government at the Centre.

"This mandate has negated these objectives,” the CPI(M) said.

In the Lok Sabha polls, the Left party won only three seats; in West Bengal and Tripura, the party failed to win even a single seat.

While the party won in one seat in Kerala, it secured two seats in Tamil Nadu where the CPI(M) contested as part of the DMK-Congress led alliance.

It was the lowest seat share since the party's formation in 1964.