In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party's poor show in the recent panchayat elections across the state. "Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose said.
Ahead of the Left meeting on Thursday to decide on Presidential poll, Pranab Mukherjee has reached out to CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat to seek his support but did not get any commitment.
The ruling CPI-M in West Bengal on Wednesday night said controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen should "leave the state" if her stay disturbs the peace.
There are few leaders in the Opposition line up who can claim a path to party leadership like Sitaram Yechury and certainly, very few who blended that ascent through student politics with awareness about non-elite real India, urban India and liberal politics, as he did, notes Shyam G Menon.
Suspected Maoists killed a local Communist Party of India-Maoist leader after raiding his house at Barabazar, about 50 km from Purulia, early on Thursday morning and fled towards the Jharkhand border, a senior police official said.
Seeking to capitalise on the large number of non-Congress and non-Bharatiya Janata Party parties having "substantial support and strength in the country," the All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam and the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday entered into an alliance in Tamil Nadu for Lok Sabha polls.
The feisty TMC boss also accused the CPI-M of ruining her party's relationship with the Congress, its ally in the Opposition bloc INDIA at the national level.
The Opposition Congress alleged that the blast, which occurred around 1 am according to the police, happened during the manufacturing of country-made bombs by some CPI-M supporters.
Doctors said his condition was "critical but stable."
Charging Home Minister P Chidambaram with adopting a 'partisan approach', the Communist Party of India - Marxist on Monday said the purpose of his letter to the West Bengal government on the alleged role of armed CPI-M cadres was meant to 'serve the political interests of Trinamool Congress'. The party also sought an explanation from him, saying the media was briefed about his letter to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee even before it reached the state government.
'The size has left no room for negotiations and pressures. From the very start the signal has gone that this is the ministry and it will remain,' Sitaram Yechury said.
Karat admits that creation of the Third Front was a wrong move.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
BJP members, including the Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, opposed the resolution, saying it was not part of the listed business.
'These allegations need to be treated with utmost seriousness.'
A day after Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was injured in stone pelting allegedly by Left Democratic Front workers in Kannur, police on Monday booked 17 Communist Party of India-Marxist activists for attempt to murder as the ruling and the opposition engaged in blame game over the incident.
According to police, CPI-M legislator K Bhimrao and other party supporters were arrested from Guindy railway station in Chennai.
The demonetisation has caused untold miseries to the ordinary people, Yechury said.
The fallout from the Justice K Hema Committee report on harassment and abuse in the Malayalam film industry intensified on Monday as a case was filed against well-known filmmaker Ranjith, and several female actors stepped forward with disturbing accounts of the mistreatment they faced at the hands of their various male counterparts.
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.
'It is not impossible that there will be some arrangement with the Congress in West Bengal after the ongoing local body polls.'
A CPI-M leader was stabbed to dead and two others seriously injured by unknown persons in a procession early Monday at Nischintapur in Rampurhat of Birbhum district.
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.
In fresh escalation of political violence in poll-bound Kerala, a 28-year-old Youth Congress worker was hacked to death allegedly by Democratic Youth Federation of India workers at Evoor in Alapuzha on Tuesday even as the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India - Marxist workers clashed in Thiruvananthapuram district leaving at least 30 injured.
Leaders from other state units are coming to VS's aid ahead of the party's crucial Central Committee meeting even as some ministers of his Cabinet have refused to work with him.
The workers have been hospitalised after they suffered series injuries in the ambush by more than 10 CPI-M workers over political rivalry.
In a bid to take on the government in Parliament on its decision to allow foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday said it has submitted notices in both the Houses seeking a discussion on the issue under rules entailing voting.
Villagers alleged that the minor, who was missing since Friday evening, was raped and murdered, and the police did not act on their complaint immediately.
The anti-Congress feeling is so sharp that when General Secretary Prakash Karat proposed to the all-powerful Politburo that for the 2009 election the party's policy should be 'Defeat BJP, Reject Congress', the Politburo sent back the revised slogan of 'Defeat BJP, Defeat Congress.'
Ruling out any election alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the coming Lok Sabha polls, the CPI(M) today said the two parties would, however, come together on common issues to keep the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA at bay.
A supporter of the Communist Party of India Marxist was killed in an attack by Trinamool Congress activists at Hazrakata in Nandigram on Friday, in a fresh eruption of violence after results of Panchayat elections were declared. East Midnapore District Superintendent of Police S Panda said today that the CPI-M supporter was attacked by TC supporters while he was returning home to Hazrakata from Haldia on Thursday night. He was admitted to the Tamluk Hospital. t
With barely a week left for the panchayat polls in West Bengal's Purulia district, maoist ultras have killed two CPI-M leaders in consecutive days. Dubraj Hembram, a local committee member of the party, was shot dead by a gang of maoists at his village Hitinglohar on Monday night.
In a significant political development, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah announced on Thursday that an alliance with the Congress was finalised for all 90 assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir, which is going for its maiden assembly polls after being reorganised into a Union Territory.
"The Left parties will take all the necessary steps to stop the government from taking such a harmful step. It is for the Congress leadership to decide whether it wants to be seen as kowtowing to the pressure of the Bush administration or acting democratically and heeding the voice of Parliament and the people. And this decision has to be a quick and clear one. The future of this government depends on the decision they will take," the editorial said.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has decided to support the Telugu Desam Party in the Assembly byelections in Andhra Pradesh, except in the four constituencies being contested by the Left parties. The party however said this alliance would stand only for the bye-polls and did not extend to general elections to the Assembly and Lok Sabha.
The Jan Raksha Yatra from Payyannur will travel through the state before ending in Thiruvananthapuram on October 17.
Whole-timers, who form the backbone of the party, are more difficult to get nowadays, admits the CPI-M. Although the party membership has increased in the past few years along with its might in national politics (it has 43 Members of Parliament in the Lok Sabha), the CPI-M has conceded its problems of a continuing high attrition rate. The rate of attrition from the party is as high as 7.5 per cent. In other words, for every 200 members, 15 members are leaving the party.
After hectic parleys and much back and forth with the INDIA bloc allies, the Congress also ended up going into the polls with its original plan of largely going solo.
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