India No Longer Has Communist-Led State Governments After Kerala Election

For the first time since 1957, India no longer has a communist-led state government. This month, after the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was defeated in Kerala after a decade-long rule, one of the world's longest-running experiments in democratic communism has ended, at least for now.

At their peak, communist parties in India ruled states from West Bengal to Kerala and Tripura. Through trade unions, peasant organizations, student organizations, and disciplined party structures, they influenced the lives of more than 100 million people.

In West Bengal, the Left Front ruled continuously from 1977 to 2011, considered one of the longest-ruling elected communist governments in the world. In Tripura, the leftists also ruled for a total of 35 years, including a continuous rule of 25 years, but were defeated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in 2018.

The journey in Kerala was somewhat different. Since the formation of one of the world's earliest elected communist governments under E.M.S. Namboodiripad in 1957, power has alternated between the leftists and the Congress. This has not made the communists permanently dominant, but it has kept them a durable political force.

In 1996, Jyoti Basu, a founding member of CPI (M) and then Chief Minister of West Bengal, came close to becoming the Prime Minister of India. But his party rejected the offer. Basu later called it a