Bengaluru, India – In the sultry August heat of 2007, India’s government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was sweating over the future of negotiations with the United States over a landmark nuclear deal. The proposed agreement aimed to ease access to nuclear fuel and technology in exchange for greater international scrutiny of India’s facilities.The problem? India’s communists – suspicious of the US – were opposed to the deal. And they were India’s kingmakers.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listWith 62 seats in India’s lower house in parliament, their support was holding up the Singh government. And the so-called Left Front threatened to withdraw that support if the PM went ahead with the deal.Though Singh eventually gambled and convinced other parties to support him in parliament, and pushed through the deal in the face of communist opposition, that moment marked the high point of the political left’s clout in India.On Monday, nearly two decades later, that influence appeared to have reached its nadir.According to early results from a range of state elections, the left has been swept from power in Kerala, the southern state that was the first in the world to have a democratically elected communist government – and the last state in India where communists were in power. The United Democratic Front, led by the Congress party – the main national opposition – had won or was leading in 98 seat …
