Margin too low why? CPIM to decide their downfall

The CPM today dubbed the decline in its vote share “marginal” but statistics from the general election reveal a sharp drop in support for the party in its traditional bastions.
“The CPM has won 16 seats with a vote share of 5.33 per cent which is marginally less than the 5.66 per cent it got in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections,” a politburo statement said today.
The Marxist figures match that of the Election Commission but the reference “marginally less” masks the full extent of the debacle. The CPM’s national vote share dropped despite the party contesting 82 seats as compared to 69 last time.
The full figures will also give more ammunition to those within the party who feel that “national factors” — a euphemism for the Prakash Karat line — played a key role in the debacle.
The party’s vote share has fallen in as many as 15 of the 22 states it contested. As many of these states did not have local factors concerning the CPM, the leadership will find it difficult to blame such issues.
In five of the seven states where the percentage has gone up, the CPM had fielded at least one candidate more than the last time, which will automatically push up the number of votes.
The politburo statement did accept that the coalition of non-Congress, non-BJP parties failed to convince India that it represented a “credible and viable” alternative. It also blamed “state-specific factors”.
The statement accepted that the party had suffered “serious reverses” in Bengal and Kerala but did not mention that the fall in its traditional bastions is much steeper than the 0.33 percentage point national dip.
The party’s votes in Bengal dropped by over 5 percentage points from 2004 in the Lok Sabha elections just concluded, confirming the sharp decline in its support base that led to large seat losses.
In Kerala, the CPM contested a seat more than the 13 it fought in 2004, but still ended up losing over one per cent of its vote share.
The CPM statement “congratulated the people of Tripura for giving a massive victory”. While the CPM won the two Tripura seats, its support there, too, was severely dented, from 68 per cent in 2004 to 61 per cent this time.
In a first-past-the-post electoral system, a party can lose its seat share in Parliament or Assembly without losing its vote share, if Opposition parties ally or if the Opposition increases its votes in concentrated pockets.
In the Karnataka Assembly elections last year, for instance, the Congress polled more votes than the BJP. But the BJP bagged almost 30 more seats and formed the government. So while the BJP is in power in Karnataka, the Congress enjoys more support in terms of votes.
But the CPM can take no such consolation. The party not only lost a majority of the seats it held in Bengal and Kerala, its vote percentage, the indicator of popular support, also declined.
The “marginal” nature of the decline in its national vote share, despite the big falls in key states, is a consequence of the 18 per cent more seats the CPM contested.
If the CPM leadership wants to recuperate from its heavy defeats, it may want to head to the picturesque Andaman and Nicobar Islands —one constituency where the party has significantly improved its vote share.