The Left is trying to align with parties which are against the UPA Government. The Left may also quit from the UPA-Left coordination panel by the end of the year or near about the time parliamentary elections are held in 2009. The Left has been exploring ways of distancing itself from the Government ever since the Congress failed poorly in the Uttar Pradesh polls and lost power in Punjab and Uttarakhand. It fears that a continued engagement with the UPA on policy issues will force it to carry the burden of incumbency in the coming electoral contests.

The Left has been dismissive about the proposed third front with its reservations over being part of a combination which includes AIADMK head Jayalalitha. In such a fluid situation the dilemma faced by the Left is quite understandable. But the Left has always tried to chart out an independent course of action for its survival and expansion. The CPI initially opposed the CPM, and became a close associate of the Indira Congress. However, the CPM’s predominance remained confined to West Bengal where it is ruling the state as head of the Left Front for the past 30-years, in Tripura for the past 10-years and as part of a two-party system in Kerala it has been ruling the state in a rotational manner with the Congress. After 2004 general election, the Left led by the CPM occupied a pivotal role at the Centre as no Government was possible without its support and ultimately the Congress-led UPA Government was sworn in with the outside support of the Left and with a common minimum programme.

But this rise and consolidation of the CPM-led Left Front recently suffered a setback with the humiliating defeat of the Left candidates first in the UP elections and then in the recent Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections. In alliance with the Congress in Gujarat’s North constituency, the CPM lost badly. The performance of both the Communist parties was worse in the UP elections. They could not win a single seat in the legislative assembly. The CPM and CPI claim that they are people’s parties to which the poor, the landless, the peasantry and the workers owe natural allegiance. However, such claims are totally baseless and both the parties are actually regional parties. In Kerala, the position of the Congress is getting weak.

Left unity and solidarity was successful. This brings us to another important difference between the B JP’s Gujarat victory and the continued victory of the Left in Bengal. In West Bengal, the victory is that of the combined Left. In states where the BJP has won, the victory is that of a single party and that too with more than 50 per cent of the popular votes. The question that should haunt the leadership of the left parties is that, how it will halt the increasing marginalization of their conclaves with a poor growth rate and poorer indicators of human development indices, notably in West Bengal.