Setting aside ideological differences, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India Marxist have joined hands in Sikkim to unitedly fight Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling's Sikkim Democratic Front in the assembly polls scheduled to be held later this year.The decision to form the UDF was taken in a meeting of Opposition leaders. The alliance is between the three national level parties and two other regional parties.
Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday met senior Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sitaram Yechury on the Lokpal issue ahead of the Parliamentary Standing Committee meeting to finalise its report on the anti-corruption law.
Communist Party of India-Marxist parliamentarian, Mohammad Salim attached a dissenting note, requesting the chairman of the committee, probing the cash-for vote incident, to use it appropriately. Salim charged that the committee had failed to live up to the expectations of the people in this matter of national importance. he also claimed that the committe was prevented from reaching any conclusion to protect the 'big fish'.
The Communist Party of India - Marxist is in favour of mounting diplomatic pressure on Bangladesh to destroy camps of North-East based militant outfits in that country. Party general secretary Prakash Karat told a press conference that the militant camps present in Bangladesh should be destroyed and that "will be possible only by mounting diplomatic pressure." He expressedg grave concern over large-scale infiltration from neighbouring Bangladesh.
Protesting against Forest Minister K B Ganesh Kumar's lewd comment against Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran V S Achuthanandan, opposition Left Democratic Front on Friday forced the adjournment of Kerala Assembly for the day despite Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Kumar expressing regret over it.
The already strained relations between the Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam and the Left parties hit the nadir on Friday with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK supremo M Karunanidhi stating that Communist Party of India - Marxist leader N Varadharajan's remarks only showed that the Left parties had already decided to walk out of the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance. Karunanidhi took a dig at the CPI-M state secretary on the latter's remarks that Congress was a 'sinking ship'
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has decided to support the Telugu Desam Party in the May 29 by-polls in Andhra Pradesh.
CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu has raised a controversy by demanding the inclusion of West Bengal transport minister Subhas Chakraborty in the party Politburo as well as state party secretariat. Basu had earlier pitched for Chakroborty's inclusion to party general secretary Prakash Karat, but the veteran leader had failed to impress Karat in this regard.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Tuesday said it would not enter into any alliance or united front with the Congress while continuing to adopt tactics to isolate and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. 'The party differentiates between the BJP and the Congress, considering the latter as a secular bourgeois party, though it vacillates when the communal forces take the offensive,' the party said in its political resolution adopted in the party Congress.
In the event of Left parties deciding to withdraw support forcing a mid-term poll for the Lok Sabha both the sides have a lot to lose, as the shadow-boxing between them will have an impact on the poll outcome, political observers point out. Knowing well that CPI-M is ideologically opposed to the nuclear deal and that it would not have a direct bearing on the electorate, the Congress party is confident of facing people, but not before bringing down the spiralling prices.
The CPI-M, in its last Congress in Delhi, had decided to develop its independent strength and expanding its political base in new areas and among various sections of people, like Dalits, tribals, minorities, women and other downtrodden sections more vigorously. The two-day meeting of the central committee in Delhi will give final touches to the CPI-M's Political-Organisational Report, which would be adopted by the party's Congress slated in March-April at Coimbatore.
Asked whether he would continue to be a politburo member, 94-year-old Basu told media persons at the CPI-M state headquarters, "I do not wish to continue and I have verbally communicated this to the party leadership."
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Saturday censured veteran Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Anil Basu for using expletives against Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee at an election meeting, while the Trinamool Congress demanded his arrest.
He told the state party conference that West Bengal now stood at the crossroads and there was no prior model for industrialisation available to it.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) contention that capitalism was the only way to industrialise West Bengal has made Left Front partners aghast.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Thursday demanded a CBI probe into the multi-crore chit fund scam in West Bengal and asked the state government to confiscate all properties of Saradha Group to pay off thousands of small investors left in the lurch.
The Communist Party of India - Marxist, which is under all-round attack over the unabated violence in Nandigram, on Monday accused the Trinamool Congress of taking the help of Maoists to create trouble in the area and insisted that normalcy will be restored there soon. Party General Secretary Prakash Karat said that the Trinamool Congress was indulging in certain activities as it had failed to win the confidence of people in a democratic manner.
Six Communist Party of India leaders, including a legislator, were beaten up, five ration shops were ransacked and two houses set ablaze as the violence against corruption in the public distribution system went on unabated in Bardhaman, Birbhum and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday claimed the bullets used by suspected Communist Party of India-Marxist cadre in the January 7 Lalgarh firing incident, which left seven villagers dead, were same as those used by police.
The tussle between cadres of the Communist Party of India-Maoist and CPI- Marxist has taken an ugly turn in West Bengal, with as many as 120 CPI (M) workers being selectively identified, abducted and killed by Maoists in the past 11 months.
'Whatever the BJP tries to do, they will not be able to make a big mark in Kerala.'
Some of the MLAs seen in the video are Indraraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Harish Meena.
Noting that the CPI-M will oppose UPA's policies both inside and outside the government, he said his party has not discussed the issue of withdrawing support to the Central government.
A prominent West Bengal Communist Party of India- Marxist leader Anisur Rahman embarrassed his party and kicked up a political storm for making obscene remarks against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee before apologising, with Trinamool Congress submitting a privilege notice and threatening to slap a legal notice on him.
Launching an attack on the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist in West Bengal, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the party of 'grabbing' crores of rupees from central funds meant for the uplift of the poor and downtrodden.
Vijayan was stopped with bullets and they were taken away from him at the Chennai airport when he was traveling to New Delhi on February 16.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Tuesday categorically ruled out forging an alliance or a united front with the Congress in future.
Yusuf Tarigami, a prominent Communist Party of India Marxist leader from Jammu and Kashmir, has taken up the cause of the beleaguered journalists in the state who have been going through a harrowing time due to the curfew imposed in the valley by the state administration.Newspapers failed to hit the stands for a few days recently after the government refused to issue curfew passes to even accredited journalists in the state.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist demanded tabling of a draft law to deal with honour killings in the monsoon session of Parliament, alleging that "political considerations" were downplaying the magnitude of such crimes. The party also criticised Home Minister P Chidambaram, saying he had a "flawed understanding" on having a separate comprehensive legislation on the issue.
The group, led by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state secretary Biman Bose, feels the "timing of the withdrawal" in July 2008 was "wrong". The group will seek a review of this decision in the forthcoming extended Central Committee meeting of the party in Vijayawada in August and also question other decisions of the party that are alleged to have led to the debacle in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Congress, accusing it of trying to help Communist Party of India-Marxist in the coming civic polls in West Bengal and virtually compared its United Progressive Alliance partner to collaborators of Pakistani army during Bangladesh liberation war.
Speaking at the inauguration of his book, former Speaker and Parliamentarian Somnath Chatterjee called on youngsters to join politics and try change the system from within. Indrani Roy reports
In a huge embarrassment to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, the special investigating team probing the murder of Marxist rebel T P Chandrasekharan has told a local court that party senior leaders were involved in the conspiracy to kill him.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) Kerala secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, arraigned as an accused in a graft case relating to awarding of contract to a Canadian firm during his tenure as Power Minister in 1998, was on Wednesday granted bail by a CBI special court in Kochi.
Deepening the image crisis that has afflicted Communist Party of India-Marxist in Kerala, police on Monday registered a murder case against the party's Idukki district secretary M M Mani for his controversial speech stating that the party had eliminated political enemies in the past.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist has expressed serious concern over Indian investigating agencies not being allowed to interrogate Lashkar-e-Tayiba operative David Coleman Headley and sought to know what steps the government is taking into the matter.
According to senior Congress leader Krishnendu Narayan Chowdhury, "It will be a mistake to consider that it was the BJP that created the disturbance. The Communist Party of India-Marxist worked in collusion with the saffron brigade to throw life out of gear in Bengal."
The Communist Party of India-Marxist asked the Congress to take the initiative in building a consensus on the candidate for the presidential election though it indicated it was not averse to supporting either Vice President Hamid Ansari or Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for the post.
The CPI(M) today observed 'Black day' in Kerala in protest against Governor R S Gavai's decision to accord sanction to the CBI to prosecute former Minister and party's state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in the SNC Lavalin graft case.
