New Delhi, May 16 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Monday vowed to bounce back in West Bengal where it has been routed after for 34 long years.

 
 "While acknowledging this defeat, there are some who are claiming the epitaph had been written for the Left in West Bengal. I am afraid they are mistaken," CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said here.
 
 Karat pointed out that despite losing power, the Left Front led by his party had got 41 percent of all votes polled and indeed its vote share had gone up by 1.1 million since the 2009 Lok Sabha election.
 
 "We will discuss how to expand this base, recover lost ground. This means a long period of work, taking up people's issues and struggles, and rebuilding organizational influence," he said.
 
 He said the CPI-M would study what shortcomings had crept in, and "how we can reconnect with people who have been alienated".
 
 Karat said the CPI-M would await detailed reports from its state units before analysing what had gone wrong in West Bengal and Kerala, where the Left Democratic Front (LDF) lost the election very narrowly.
 
 He said that in Kerala, the Left lost by just 155,000 votes. "The LDF has already decided that we shall be in the opposition and we shall continue to work for the pro-people policies."