Believe it or not, five Left parties got a grand total of 5,405 votes in the Delhi assembly elections in which they fielded 14 candidates.
The Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML), Forward Bloc and Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) were in the fray as part of a Left alliance.
The Socialist Party (India) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) did not put up any candidate but supported the five Left parties.
The CPI contested five seats, the CPI-ML Liberation three and the other three parties two seats each. The Left asked its activists and supporters to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the remaining 56 seats.
When the votes were counted, the Left found it had collectively won 5,405 votes in the 14 constituencies.
The largest number of votes (947) went to Rakesh Kumar of the SUCI- Communist at Badli. The least (52) were secured by Rakesh Sharma of the Forward Bloc at Mundka.
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Collectively, CPI candidates Sanjeev Kumar Rana (Timarpur), Abdul Jabbar (Ballimaran), Dalip Kumar (Palam), Khubi Ram (Trilokpuri) and Chandan Lal Premi (Krishna Nagar) bagged 2,393 votes.
The CPI-M's Ranjit Tiwari secured 712 votes at Karawal Nagar and Premchand (Dwarka) 264.
Surender of the CPI-ML Liberation got 363 votes at Narela. His colleagues Ajay Kumar Singh (Wazirpur) and Mala Devi (Kondli) got 183 and 230 votes respectively.
Rakesh Sharma of Forward Bloc got just 52 votes in Mundka, and his party colleague Hari Shankar Sharma 131 at Nangloi Jat.
While Rakesh Kumar won 947 votes at Badli, his SUCI-Communist colleague Ritu Kaushik collected 130 votes at Sadar Bazar.
The 5,405 votes the Left secured in 14 constituencies were thousands and thousands of votes less than what the three AAP losers got in each constituency.
The AAP swept the Delhi election, winning 67 of the 70 seats. It lost only three seats -- Rohini, Mustafabad and Vishwas Nagar -- to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
AAP loser C.L. Gupta in Rohini got 54,499 votes. Mohammed Yunus in Musatafabad -- the only AAP candidate to finish third -- won 49,791 votes and Atul Gupta at Vishwas Nagar collected 47,966 votes.
Ahead of the Feb 7 Delhi election, the Left parties came out with a joint statement listing the issues on which they will seek votes in the dominantly low-income and working class areas where they were contesting.
These included implementation of minimum wages and all labour laws, the rights of street hawkers, end to demolition of slums, issues of sanitation and water, and end to privatization of essential services.
"We appeal to the people of Delhi to vote for Left candidates to ensure there is a robust voice of opposition inside and outside the assembly that can champion the issues of the common people, poor and working masses," a joint Left statement said.
Left leaders say they need to fight elections, irrespective of whether they lose or win, to further their support base. Everyone does not agree.
"I don't even know why we contest these elections and get humiliated," a CPI leader told IANS. "We should have simply supported the AAP. We know we can't win, then why contest?"
(M.R. Narayan Swamy can be reached on narayan.swamy@ians.in <mailto:narayan.swamy@ians.in>)