Pushed to the margins

Ahead of the 2014 General Election several parties the Left, Janata Dal (United) and Janata Dal (Secular), Samajwadi Party and Biju Janata Dal promised to stand together and challenge the threat to "secularism". In the end these parties fought independently with little or no electoral pact whatsoever. The result, every one of them bit the dust. The Left parties took a massive hit. The CPM scored victory in nine of the 93 seats and CPI just one in 67 seats contested while the AIFB and RSP failed to open the account. For the Left, the fall was too steep.
Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party just about managed to hold on in the family pocket-borough weathering the storm that swept across UP in favour of the BJP with the party winning just 5 of the 78 seats it contested.
In Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav won four of the 27 seats and Janata Dal (United) of Nitish Kumar-Sharad Yadav just two of the 38 seats it contested.
Similarly, the Janata Dal (Secular) of H D Deve Gowda won just two of the 26 seats it contested in Karnataka and Kerala.