19 new members included in CPI(M) central committee, 2 new faces in politburo

CPI(M) today included 19 new members into its central committee and another two new faces into the politburo, the highest body of the Left party, on the concluding day of the five-day party congress in Hyderabad.

The new 95-member central committee - including the 19 members (one seat has been kept vacant for a woman candidate) - elected the politburo, which included two new faces. However, a member - A K Padmanabhan - was dropped from the politburo.

Sitaram Yechury, who was unanimously elected the general secretary of the party for a second consecutive term, listed out the names of the 19 new central committee members:

Suprakash Talukdar, Arun Kumar Mishra, K M Tiwari, K Radhakrishnan, M V Govindan Master, Jaswinder Singh, J P Gavit, G Nagaiah, Tapan Chakravarty, Jiten Choudhury, Muralidharan, Arun Kumar, Vijoo Krishnan, Mariam Dhawale, Rabin Deb, Abhas Roy Choudhury, Sujan Chakraborty, Amiyo Patra, Sukhwinder Singh Shekon.

 

The new members in the politburo are: Centre of Indian Trade Unions leader Tapan Sen and former MP Nilotpal Basu.

Though Yechury managed to get his "minority report" on the party's political line incorporated in the draft political resolution at the congress, the new central committee still has more members from former general secretary Prakash Karat's faction.

Yechury's line regarding whether or not CPI(M) should involve Congress to take on BJP, had faced a major challenge.

The party leadership yesterday chose a middle path by deciding to amend the official draft by omitting the crucial phrase "no understanding" with the Congress, which was a victory of sorts for the "minority view" held by Yechury.

Interestingly, Yechury and the faction supporting his political line were in minority at the previous party congress held in Visakhapatnam in 2015, but he had managed to get elected as the secretary general for the first time then.

This time, too, Yechury faced a similar task to convince the party congress with his "minority view". However, he managed to get his report incorporated in the official draft political resolution based on "political ground realities".

The draft resolution was supported by 17 states, before getting adopted at the party congress.

The party has claimed to work unitedly to defeat the RSS-BJP combine. But party insiders say Yechury is likely to struggle to get a majority of the members to agree to his decisions.