New Delhi, May 14: The Left parties have never had it so good — not since the first Lok Sabha elections in 1952. Their tally has gone up from 43 to 63. They have picked up seats outside Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, the traditional Left bastions. The reasons are multiple but what is being touted by the Left as the principal reason is the fact that they have fought against communalism consistently — more tenaciously than any other secular party. “Our success is because of the consistent policies we have followed. Our persistent fight is against communalism and we have benefited from the anti-BJP wave which has swept the country,” says CPM politburo member Prakash Karat. For the Left, no success could have been sweeter than defeating the NDA’s external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha in Hazaribagh. Sinha lost to the CPI candidate Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Mehta. In Bengal, the Left Front’s tally has gone up from 29 to 35 seats . The Left claims its success is due to its performance in the villages and its land reforms. But in private the party leaders concede that they have benefited from having a weak Opposition in the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress. Mamata’s idiosyncrasies — her erratic entries and exits from the NDA council of ministers, the Left says, worked to her discredit for the electorate in Bengal. The scenario gets better for the Left as you move down the map to the southern tip of Kerala. “Never in the electoral history have we achieved such a victory in the state,” says Karat. The Left Democratic Front has swept the state getting as many as 18 of the total 20 parliamentary seats. In fact, for the first time the Left has wrested one of the two traditional Muslim League boroughs. “This time, we have won the Manjeri seat considered impregnable by the Muslim League”, says the CPM leader. According to Karat, the Congress-led United Democratic Front’s rout in the state can only be explained by the people’s total disaffection with chief minister A.K. Antony, his policies and the squabbles within his party. Congress dissident leader K. Karunakaran has been keeping the fire of dissidence alive by targeting Antony both within and outside the Congress forum. “It is a comprehensive defeat for the Antony government,” says Karat. He also underlines that family politics has not gone down well with the people. “Both Karunakaran’s son and daughter have lost the polls,” he says. What has also contributed to the Left’s success is its campaign against unbridled economic liberalisation. The CPM kept the heat on the NDA government, blasting its India Shining campaign. It leaders accused the NDA of trying to mislead people by juggling statistics. “India Shining is a huge fraud that has been perpetrated on the people,” says senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.