The crisis of the Left in Telangana Premium

The CPI (M) needs to find a way to convert its ground-level support to votes in Telangana

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or the CPI (M)’s Telangana State committee appears to be at a crossroads. With less than three years for Assembly elections in the State, the party seems to be facing multiple challenges which are impacting its efforts to revive electoral fortunes of the past. With its sizeable vote bank, especially in the Nalgonda and Khammam districts, the party used to play a key role in the victory of its allies, mainly the Congress and later the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

But, the party’s prospects have undergone a sea change, after the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh, with the party winning just one Assembly seat, Bhadrachalam, in 2014 and drawing a blank in the elections in 2018 and 2023. 

The results of the recent elections to the urban and rural local bodies have revealed the party’s situation at the ground level. Its supporters have come down significantly. The party could barely win a few wards in the municipal elections as well as in the elections to the sarpanch posts, although the latter elections are not contested on party symbols. Such an absence of votes and the subsequent lack of representation in the Assembly has dampened the spirits of CPI (M) activists who had long been associated with the party. This has yet again exposed the CPI (M)’s weakness in converting its grassroots support to actual votes.

Coming at this juncture was the party’s central leadership’s decision to censure senior leader Tammineni Veerabhadram which has caused consternation among a section of CPI (M) leaders and cadre. The central committee felt that instead of increasing the party’s influence among the people, it faced questions about its survival when Mr. Veerabhadram was at the helm. Mr. Veerabhadram was reportedly also faulted for not taking steps to infuse new blood into the party.

This is not the first time the senior leader has been reproached by the central leadership. Mr. Veerabhadram had earlier been reprimanded by the CPI (M) central committee when he, then State Secretary of the party, had formed the Bahujan Left Front in the runup to the 2018 elections, allegedly projecting the candidates on caste lines. The central committee felt that the emphasis on caste identity had reduced the alliance to a caste-based front, which was a major departure from the CPI (M)’s basic position.

CPI(M) will work for an alternative political platform in Telangana, says John Wesley