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The recently concluded assembly elections in 5 states are being discussed all across the country, and also around the globe for Narendra Modi led BJP’s massive success in Uttar Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, where the party won more than three-fourth of the seats. BJP also won 21 seats in Manipur, and formed the government with the help of its allies in the northeastern state, where it had zero seats in 2012. From no seat in 2012 to forming a stable government within 5 years is remarkable. However, something which experts have either not noticed or willingly ignored is the downfall of communist parties over the years.

Uttar Pradesh has never been a Communist stronghold, but the communist parties CPI and CPM used to win approx 10-15 seats during the 1970s and even in the early 80s with a vote share around 4-5 %. However, the masses have been continuously rejecting the communist parties all across the country but a couple of states. In the recently concluded assembly elections in, Communist parties in Uttar Pradesh fielded 140 candidates and were able to secure only 0.2% of the votes – a total of just 1.3 lakh votes all across the state. The magnitude of the communist parties’ poor performance can be estimated from the fact that even NOTA secured 1.1% of the vote share.

The scenario is similar in Manipur. Out of 60 assembly seats in Manipur, the communist parties used to win 6-10 seats during the 90s. In 2002 assembly elections, the communists won 5 seats and in 2007, they won 4 seats. However, the communist parties have failed to open their account in 2017 assembly elections. The vote share has also dropped drastically.

In West Bengal, where the Communists ruled for more than 3 decades, they are under a steady decline. A resurging Mamata Banerjee has crushed the communists and reduced them to a few seats. In 2016 assembly elections, the condition of Communists were so bad that they were forced to form a pre-poll alliance with Congress party to save a certain rout.

As of now, Tripura and Kerala are the only state with a Communist government and a strong red cadre. Apart from the two states, the Communist party is on a steep decline all across India. The last place where they are clinging on to their turf is the academia. The universities are still having a strong presence of Communist parties, especially JNU, Jadavpur University and some other big universities.

However, they no longer hold a monopoly in university campuses as well. With the advent of social media, the lies, cruelty, evil ideology of communism and hypocrisy has been busted. The anti-national agenda of communist parties and their failed ideology hardly attract anyone post the era of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation which ushered a new era of jobs and prosperity.

So, the next time you see Communists raising anti-India slogans supporting terrorists and naxalites, remember these are just a bunch of last remaining communists. The country neither takes them nor their ideology seriously. Gone are the days when they could maintain their power by political murders and threats. Today, in the era of social media and 24×7 news channels, such atrocities by Communist parties can no longer be hidden from people. When it comes to polls, they have been rapidly losing significance and are restricted to couple of states, which soon will witness the downfall of Communism in near future. Communist parties are breathing their last and counting their last remaining days !

Kshitij Mohan**