India, April 4 -- When the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) retained power in the 2021 assembly elections, it broke a 40-year-long record in the state. The LDF came very close to achieving this feat in the 2011 elections as well, falling just 3 short of the half-way mark of 71 in the state assembly. In absolute terms, the vote difference between the LDF and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was just 1.56 lakh votes. Kerala's politics has always been seen as a tight race between the LDF and UDF. However, this was not the case in the past two assembly elections in the state, where the LDF had a comfortable lead over the UDF in terms of both seat share and vote share. The roots of thi...