New Delhi: Losing gains it had made in the 2020 Assembly elections, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-Liberation was leading on just four of the 20 seats it contested in Bihar this year.
Votes counted by the Election Commission till 1pm Friday showed CPI(ML)-L leading in Ghosi, Karakat, Paliganj and Phulwari constituencies.
EC data also showed the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist) were leading on just one seat each.
Votes counted till Friday afternoon indicate a setback for the Left. In the 2020 Bihar election, Left parties captured 16 of the 29 seats they fought on under the Mahagathbandhan.
The CPI(ML)-L, which contested 19 seats, won 12—a strike rate of 63 percent. CPI and CPI(M) each won two seats from their tallies of six and four constituencies.
Despite CPI(ML)-L’s impressive showing that year, the party received only one additional constituency in this election’s seat-sharing arrangement. General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya attributed the modest increase to the inclusion of more alliance partners, specifically the Vikassheel Insaan Party headed by Mukesh Sahni and the Indian Inclusive Party led by I.P. Gupta.
Analysts had offered different explanations for the 2020 results. Some dismissed the Left’s success as simply piggybacking on RJD’s electoral machinery, while others argued that the ideologically-driven parties’ grassroots work had yielded dividends.
The 2020 polls marked the first time that the CPI(ML)-L allied with the RJD-led Opposition, signalling electoral pragmatism from a party long regarded as the most ideologically driven one on the Left.
Trends for the latest election suggest that the Left’s performance five years ago was dependent on the alliance doing well as a whole.
According to EC results, RJD was leading on just 26 of the 143 seats it fought on, and Congress, in just four of 61.
Also Read: Live updates on Bihar assembly election results