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Surjeet re-elected Gen Secy of CPM

Hyderabad, March 24
Octogenarian Communist leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet was today unanimously re-elected CPM General Secretary for the fourth successive term, proving wrong all speculations over change of guard in the party.

The party’s 17th Congress, on its concluding day, reposed faith in Mr Surjeet, a Communist veteran of pre-independence era, who was first elected to the post at the Madras Congress in 1992.

His re-election was announced by former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu at the closing ceremony of the congress, amid applause from delegates.

Significantly, the strength of the party’s central committee has been increased from 51 to 60 while the 17-member politburo was unchanged. Senior Communist leader from Andhra Pradesh and former MP K. Satyanarayana was elected to the politburo to fill the vacancy that arose after the death of M. Hanumantha Rao.

Mr Surjeet, who had played a key role in forging the United Front, was the unanimous choice of the newly-elected committee members.

Talking to reporters after his re-election, he said the party’s “foremost challenge” was to defeat the “communal forces represented by the BJP and to build the third front as an alternative to the BJP and the Congress.

There was intense speculation over the change of leadership with some media reports even suggesting that the politburo member Prakash Karat might replace Mr Surjeet.

“The talk of change of guard was the creation of an overactive media,” politburo member Sitaram Yechury said 750 party delegates elected the new committee members who in turn re-elected Mr Surjeet.

Mr Surjeet said a sustained mass struggle to resist liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation should be launched.

Seeking to rebuff the criticism that he was indirectly trying to prop up a Congress-led coalition at the national level, he said, “If we were to bring the Congress to power, we would not have talked about strengthening the third front.”

Vowing to “streamline” the party by addressing its “shortcomings and weaknesses”, he said the party could be expanded only through mass struggles and asserted that the CPM would take up “mass mobilisation” on issues concerning the common man.

Disagreeing with the argument that building a third front would indirectly benefit the BJP by splitting anti-BJP votes, he said: “When that question comes, we will see.” PTI