NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (CPI) is making a bid to improve its 1989 tally of 12 Lok Sabha seats concentrating mainly in the Hindi belt on the poll plank of threat to the country’s secular identity and its unity and integrity.
The party which was formed in 1920 in the central Astan town of Tashkent by a small group of Indian Marxists has emerged as a national party with cadre-based memberships of about 415000.
Its leaders feel confident of restoring its 1962 record tally of 29 when the communists were united if the idea of a broader left party’s unity taking Indian People’s Front (IPF) a former Naxalite group into its fold takes a concrete shape.
On its entry into the electoral scene in 1952 the party won 16 Lok Sabha seats. It put up its best performance in 1962 winning 29 seats. at the time of its split two years later the party was the largest single opposition group in Lok Sabha.
Otherwise it has faced fluctuating electoral fortunes. In 1957 two years before it created history by forming the world’s first democratically elected communist government in Kerala it had 27 MPs in the Lok Sabha. In the 1967 elections the first polls the party faced after the split and the formation of CPI (M) its tally was cut to 23 and it retained this position in 1971.
In 1977 the party’s strength came down to just seven while in the 1980 polls it raised to 11 The sympathy wave that followed the assassination of Mrs. Indira Gandhi tied to the party putting up its worst poll performance with its tally plunging to six.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 19, 1991
