The Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the State will repeat its 2004 Lok Sabha poll performance in the elections of 2014, Communist party of India (Marxist) [CPI-M] State secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said here on Wednesday.
The LDF had won 16 of the 20 seats in the State in that election.
He was delivering the presidential address at a seminar organised by the AKG Centre for Research and Studies in connection with the birth centenary of former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyothi Basu here.
In the elections due next year, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) could not hope to come anywhere near its 2009 Lok Sabha poll performance [when it reversed the 2004 results by winning 16 of the 20 seats in the State] by drawing the support of communal and even extremist forces, he said.
Issues raised
The mood of the electorate was totally against the UDF due to the deterioration the State had seen in all sectors during the two-and-a-half years of the Oommen Chandy government. The law and order situation had collapsed, public sector undertakings that had recorded profits during the tenure of the previous LDF government had all fallen into loss, and the power sector was in deep crisis. On top of all these, there was intense infighting within the Congress and the constituent parties of the front, he said.
“The groups fighting on another in the Congress have also been using the other parties in the UDF in their fight. This has created discontent among the constituent parties too, especially at the ground level. The parties are deeply divided. This would lead to large sections of voters, who had supported the UDF in the previous election, to align with the LDF in the coming elections,” he said.
