They are the biggest party in the state elections but in national elections Kerala votes more for Congress and the communists only win a few seats, why?
I won't be able to provide a super detailed answer re: political realities in Kerala, but I will point out two facts:
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Kerala only represents 2-4% of India's population (35 million or so).
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CPI, CPI(M), other parts of LDF, etc, don't have massive bourgeois electoral majorities/pluralities in Kerala. Enough to rule often but not 80% or anything like that, and not consistently. 3 of 20 Lokh Saba members are from a left party and 7/9 Rajya Saba are from a left party. Roughly speaking, Rajya Saba corresponds to the ruling party of a state and Lokh Saba corresponds to first past the post bourgeois electoralism.
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Rajya Saba has about 10 members from left parties so 7/10 are already from Kerala. Rajya Saba has around 250 members total. Lokh Saba has ~8 left party members so 3/8 are from Kerala. Lokh Saba has around 550 members total.
Obviously Kerala's left has still made substantial achievements. Imagine if a state or province in your country were administered by socialists and had a much stronger set of guaranteed services and coherent class struggle. But the numbers make rough sense.
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There was an article about this in the Quint but I'm not sure how reliable it is. It sounds very liberal: https://www.thequint.com/opinion/kerala-why-congress-led-udf-winning-in-lok-sabha-but-losing-in-the-assembly#read-more
Some people have this notion that we can bargain better if we send the representatives of the larger party, which is congress.
Not all of the populace is pro-communist, many choose the communists because they are more likely to focus on public welfare.
