Kerala Chief Minister and senior Communist Party of India - Marxist leader V S Achuthanandan will be removed from the party's politburo and the central committee, said sources in New Delhi. The octogenarian leader, who is currently in New Delhi, will leave for Kerala early on Sunday morning, said sources.Though some leaders from West Bengal had voiced their support for Achuthanandan, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat remained firm on taking action against the Kerala CM.
Defying a Communist Party of India directive to quit his post before the trust vote, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Monday chaired an all-party meeting in New Delhi ahead of the special session of the Lok Sabha to decide on the confidence motion.The Speaker had called the meeting of the floor leaders of parties to discuss issues related to the trust vote being sought by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in the wake of the Left withdrawing support to the UPA.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist met in Vijayawada last week to confront the many challenges facing the party, especially in its strongholds, Bengal and Kerala. What did the meeting achieve? Can the CPI-M emerge from the crisis it finds itself in?
'It will be a ghastly mistake for the CPI-M to face the 2019 poll on its own.' 'At best, it can hope to split non-BJP votes in some pockets, but the humiliating rout will spell its doom,' warns M K Bhadrakumar.
The two-day Communist Party of India - Marxist politburo meeting, held at the party headquarters in Delhi, ended on Sunday. Politburo member and senior leader Sitaram Yechury, while briefing media persons, said that the party has called for a special central committee meeting on July 11 and 12 to discuss the factional split in the party's Kerala unit.However, sources said that the two-day meet has decided to take action against Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday assured her counterpart from Delhi Arvind Kejriwal, that her party would support him in his fight against the central ordinance to control appointments and transfer of bureaucrats.
The CPI(M), which has finalized 80 Lok Sabha seats, is in talks with other like-minded parties to forge electoral alliances on some more constituencies in its bid to forge an alternative against Congress and BJP.
The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.
Opposition parties allege the Modi government is attempting to turn India into a 'dictatorship' with the introduction of three Bills that seek to provide for removal of the prime minister, chief ministers and ministers arrested on serious charges, and vowed to oppose it 'tooth and nail'.
State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan's suspension will also continue.
'Whoever is questioning the government on the Adani issue is being harassed'
Yechury briefed the prime minister about the deliberations of the CPI-M's central committee and the position taken by the party.
Sources close to the top BJP leadership tell me that Tharoor has already had secret meetings with the BJP's top brass and is waiting patiently to make his next move, reports Ramesh Menon.
A CBI court in Kerala sentenced 10 individuals to life imprisonment for the murder of two Youth Congress workers in 2019. Four others, including a former CPI(M) MLA, received five years in prison. The court found the accused guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy, citing political rivalry as the motive. The case involved the deaths of Kripesh and Sarath Lal P K, who were allegedly killed by CPI(M) workers in Kasaragod district. The verdict sparked reactions from both the Congress and CPI(M), with the Congress calling it a blow to the CPI(M)'s violent political culture and the CPI(M) challenging the verdict and claiming political motives in the CBI investigation.
Facing heat from the party's top brass, Communist Party of India - Marxist stalwart in Kerala V S Achuthanandan on Thursday publicly admitted that he had committed "organisational mistakes" on issues related to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and the murder of an expelled party leader. Achuthanandan's admission comes two days after the CPI-M central committee censured him for defying the official line on these issues.
Tripura's outgoing chief minister Manik Sarkar will be shifting to his new residence - the Communist Party of India-Marxist's state committee office.
There are "contradictions" in the approach of the two parties in fighting BJP and there is no question of an alliance with the ruling TMC in Bengal as it has inflicted atrocities on grassroot level CPI (M) workers, he said.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Mohammed Salim has accused Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee of trying to be more "Leftist than the Leftists" by attacking the government over reforms including FDI in retail.
The two day Communist Partyof India-Marxist state committee meeting which is significant after the Polibureau decision of demoting the octogenarian leader and Chief Minister of Kerala ,V S Achuthanandan from the party polibureau will begin in Thiruvananthpuram on Tuesday.
He was unanimously elected the new general secretary of the party.
Three top leaders of the two biggest constituents of the Left bloc joined Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Subodh Roy a CPI(M) central committee member and former Lok Sabha MP and former CPI MLA Lal Babu Sahani pledged allegiance to the ruling Janata Dal-United.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday announced a three-member committee headed by state secretary N Varadarajan to discuss seat-sharing with its new ally All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Taml Nadu.
An outstanding student, the Politburo member has emerged as a leader with considerable skills of political negotiations.
While the CPI-M in a statement after the secretariat on Friday maintained that Balakrishnan, who is also a Polit Bureau member, had sought leave for further treatment which had been accepted, the leader of opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala dubbed the move as a delayed dawning of wisdom.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party might conduct the Lok Sabha polls in December itself, claiming that all choppers have been booked by the saffron party for campaigning.
'The BJP lacks a credible mass leader who matches Mamata Banerjee's popularity.' 'Given the division of votes among Opposition parties, the West Bengal government's dole-giving strategy, and the consolidation of the poor, significant sections of scheduled caste groups and Muslim minorities behind the ruling party, it will be difficult to dislodge the Trinamool from power.'
There is a proposal from the BJP camp that they would resort to a proportion-based increase in the number of Lok Sabha seats for individual states, based on what they now have. On the face of it, this sounds like a fine argument that those demanding a 'freeze' now cannot oppose without reasons and justification, avers N Sathiya Moorthy.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
This is the first instance of violence since the Central Reserve Police Force was deployed in the area following the 'recapture' of the area by the CPI M. The forces were present at the village when the houses were set on fire.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
After two days of self-introspection, Karat, the party general secretary, retains his hold and instead the West Bengal lobby along with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will now be taking "corrective measures at the organisational and governmental level."
The State Election Commission on Friday informed the Calcutta high court that it has requisitioned 822 companies of central forces for the July 8 panchayat polls in West Bengal.
A team of CBI officers reached his residence in south Kolkata's Chetla area along with a large contingent of central forces in the morning, officials said.
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025 was passed in the Lok Sabha early Thursday, with 288 members supporting it and 232 against it.
The Congress is fighting the elections in a pre-poll alliance with National Conference and has fielded 32 candidates, mostly in Jammu region, compared to 51 by the regional party. Additionally, the CPI(M) and the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) have each been allocated one seat while both the Congress and NC had a 'friendly contest' on five seats.
It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
He also claimed that the people were asking are all the jobs under Kerala government reserved for cadres and the university jobs for powerful people in Thiruvananthapuram.
Maintaining that the INDIA alliance is for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and not for assembly polls in any state, the Congress on Friday asserted that the opposition bloc of 27 parties exists and will fight together.
The Communist Party of India Marxist Politburo has decided to meet in New Delhi soon to take an 'appropriate decision' if the talks between the Left Front and the United Progressive Alliance fail to end the logjam over the India-United States nuclear agreement.The party central committee, in its meeting in Kolkata last week, had authorised the politburo to take a final decision if the UPA government went ahead with the operationalisation of the nuclear deal.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will not attend the full session of the Communist Party of India(M) extended central committee meeting in Vijayawada. Bhattacharjee's move comes days after Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan's decision to stay away from the meet.
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