CPI (M) General Secretary, Prakash Karat, who has been finding faults with the Congress’ Gujarat campaign, needs to set his own house in order first. The election results in Himachal Pradesh has underlined why CPI (M) should be worried about electoral defeat and rethink on expanding the organisation. As it was in Bhavnagar North in Gujarat, in Himachal too, the party’s best performance was emerging first runner-up in one seat. While the party had contested for one seat in Gujarat, in Himachal, it contested for seven and drew a zero.

In Shimla, party’s Sanjay Chauhan finished second to the BJP’s Suresh Bhardwaj. Unlike Bhavnagar North, here the Congress had fielded a candidate. Interestingly, both Chauhan and Congress’ Harbhajan Singh Bhajji together polled 5,742 votes more than the BJP candidate’s 12,443.

Had the “secular solidarity” helped the CPI (M) and the Congress to come together, at least three seats would not have had the BJP as winner. Though it would not have altered the ultimate results, the secular plank would have certainly got a boost. For example, in Banjar, the BJP defeated the Congress by a margin of 232 votes, and the CPI (M) here polled 1,334 votes. In Ani constituency, the BJP won by a margin of 1,449 votes, and the CPI (M) candidate here bagged 3,323 votes.

Both the main Left parties had contested for the Akri seat. While the CPI (M) got 2.66 per cent votes, the CPI got 1.08 per cent votes. The BJP bagged 45.70 per cent and won the seat. The independent candidate, who was second, got 31.27 per cent votes and the Congress got 16.34 per cent votes. The CPI lost all the eight seats it had contested in the state.

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