Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Red signals for Left, CPI faces danger of losing national status

While the biggest shocks for the Left came in Kerala and West Bengal, the situation elsewhere was not much different and contributed significantly to the lowering of its overall tally. It lost seats in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and its hopes of making gains in Rajasthan and Bihar were dashed.

The CPI(M) and CPI managed to win just three seats outside their traditional strongholds of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, losing four seats that they held in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.

In Andhra Pradesh, sitting MP and CPI deputy general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy lost to the Congress in Nalgonda by 1.5 lakh votes. CPI(M) MP Babu Rao Mediyam met a similar fate in Araku. Mediyam, who represented Bhadrachalam in the current Parliament, was defeated by Congress’s Kishore Chandra Suryanarayana Deo Vyricherla.

In Tamil Nadu, where both the parties had two sitting members, the tally was reduced to one each. CPI(M)’s P R Natarajan won the Coimbatore seat, while the party lost the Nagercoil (new name Kanyakumari) and Madurai seats. The CPI retained its Tenkasi seat but it lost in Chennai North and Nagapattinam.

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