Mithilesh Kumar Sinha
Retired Professor, Nagaland University, Lumami
The 2026 Kerala Assembly election has emerged as one of the most seismic developments in recent Indian history. Sixty-nine years later, on May 4, 2026, the wheel turned. Kerala voted out the Left Democratic Front, and with that verdict, the last Left-led state government anywhere in India fell. With Kerala's defeat, the Left has been 'left out' of India It signifies the conclusion of Communist rule in any Indian state for the first time since 1977, closing a lengthy chapter that once positioned the Left as a major force in shaping both state and national politics. The Left Democratic Front has experienced a significant defeat in Kerala, marking its absence from any state government for the first time in nearly fifty years. This outcome highlights a broader national decline for Left parties. With this miserable defeat, Communist governance in India’s states comes to an end for the first time since 1977.
In April 1957, Kerala inaugurated what is often regarded as the world’s first democratically elected communist government — although purists will accurately note that San Marino, the landlocked microstate encircled by Italy, saw a Communist–Socialist coalition ascend to power via the ballot in 1945 and govern until 1957. Acknowledging San Marino's significance, Kerala’s endeavor under E M S Namboodiripad remains the more substantial and impactful one
The Left's engagement with political authority commenced in April 1957 when E.M.S. Namboodiripad took the oath of office as the chief minister of Kerala, leading a CPI ministry. This event is noted as the first occurrence of a communist government gaining power through the electoral process anywhere globally. However, two years later, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru dismissed the state government by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution. EMS returned to power a decade later as the leader of the first coalition ministry in the state. Subsequently, the Left was elected to govern the state multiple times and had an extended tenure leading the governments in West Bengal and Tripura. It lost control of West Bengal in 2011 and Tripura in 2017. Interestingly, this period of governance concludes in Kerala, where it all initially began.
Indeed, the Left in India successfully endured the challenges of the eighties and nineties, a period during which communist governments worldwide collapsed. It was not merely the governments that disappeared; most political parties themselves fell apart. Nevertheless, the Indian factions adapted to their local contexts and maintained their significance. The defeat in West Bengal dealt a severe blow to the CPI(M)-led Left Front in the state, as there is currently no faint hope of regaining its former status. In contrast, Tripura and Kerala experienced different outcomes, where the Left regained power after facing defeat
India's last remaining left-wing government has been defeated after a span of fifty years. Kerala, the Indian state that once introduced the first democratically elected communist government to the world, has now voted the left out of power. Consequently, there is no Indian state currently governed by the left.
