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.
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.
At least 10 CPI(M) workers were injured in a clash that broke out after activists of a right wing Hindu outfit attacked the Left party's headquarters in New Delhi on Sunday. The protest turned violent as scores of RSS activists clashed with CPM workers and started pelting stones at the party office where a CPI(M) Central Committee was meeting, police sources said.
The Jan Raksha Yatra from Payyannur will travel through the state before ending in Thiruvananthapuram on October 17.
In a fresh ultimatum, the CPI(M) has threatened mid-term polls to Lok Sabha if the government goes ahead with IAEA talks beyond December.
Mounting attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said while the Left is not going to play any major role in Indian politics after the elections, the saffron party was trying to divide society by stoking anger.
Trinamul Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi on the violence in Nandigram.
'The CPI-M faces multiple investigations, with the CBI, the SIT and the Kerala police pursuing different cases. It is said as many as 70 to 90 CPI-M leaders are under the scanner, and that as many as 30 of these leaders are under imminent danger of being arrested,' notes T V R Shenoy.
Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan were on Saturday suspended from the Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo over a war-of-words in public.
After putting the Communist Party of India - Marxist in Kerala in the dock with his controversial comment about it eliminating political foes in the past, party leader M M Mani has once again purportedly made a similar claim, embarrassing the party further.
The Communist Party of India -Marxist captured fresh areas in Nandigram on Wednesday, where two people were injured in renewed violence. Meanwhile, two of those injured in Tuesday's violence died on Wednesday, taking the toll to four. Two persons, including a woman, were injured in renewed violence at around noon today. Violence was reported from Tekhalibazar, Maheshpur, Bhangaberia, Sonachura, Satengabari, Gokulnagar and Adhikaripara besides other places.
Earlier on July 29, a CPI-M activist was killed during the clashes between the activists of the Trinamool Congress-led Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee and CPI (M) workers along the Nandigram-Khejuri border.
One person was killed and around 40 houses were ransacked during a clash between workers of the Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist at Hatishala village under Chapra police station in Nadia district on Tuesday.
The ensuing assembly elections in four states besides a host of issues, including the airport privatisation, Iran and Foreign Direct Investment in the retail sector, would figure prominently at the meet.
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.
According to police, CPI-M legislator K Bhimrao and other party supporters were arrested from Guindy railway station in Chennai.
'These allegations need to be treated with utmost seriousness.'
The two parties will not campaign jointly and they have not forged a formal alliance.
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.
BJP members, including the Leader of Opposition Sunil Sharma, opposed the resolution, saying it was not part of the listed business.
The resolution, once finalised, would chalk out the political-tactical line of the CPI-M for the next three years.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Tuesday said the Left parties would not withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance government.
Biswas had suffered a massive brain haemorrhage.
Pinarayi Vijayan is a name not many Indians are familiar with, but few state leaders have such a strangehold over their party as the secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's Kerala unit has. Can you think of the leader of any other state political unit preventing his party's chief minister from getting a ticket to contest an assembly election?
The CPI(M) has asked the Centre to withdraw its decision to make Aadhaar cards compulsory for providing various benefits like cooking gas subsidy to people.
Claiming that their recent nationwide strike was a "big success", CPI(M) on Wednesday said it would intensify the struggle against rising prices and would not be deterred by the "politically motivated propaganda" about losses the hartal caused to the nation.
The bench sought a reply within one week and posted the matter for further hearing on September 16.
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.
The decision was taken keeping in mind the party norm that no CPI-M leader can represent the party in the Upper House for more than two terms.
The Communist Party of India - Marxist on Saturday rubbished suggestions by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee that a political conspiracy was behind the Gyaneshwari Express disaster in West Midnapore, alleging that she was trying to cover up lapses and failures of her ministry in the incident. Senior CPI-M Politburo member Sitaram Yechury also said some elements were 'cynically' using the situation to further their petty partisan interests.
Protesting the 'erroneous' stand, Prasenjit Bose, former convenor of the research unit of CPI-M, decided to send his resignation letter to the CPI-M leadership, and was later expelled from the party. We present the letter, where he elaborates his stand, which was first published in Pragati, on July 22.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Thursday said it would decide its strategy on the coal block allocation issue on the basis of a statement Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may make in Parliament on the matter.
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.
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 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
The mystery surrounding the disappearance of senior CPI(M) leader and its central committee member W R Varadarajan was on Sunday resolved with the recovery of his body from a lake and police suspect he may have committed suicide.
Terrorists shot at and critically wounded a prominent Communist Party of India-Marxist activist in south Kashmir's Kulgam district on Thursday evening.
Twenty-five Communist Party of India-Marxist members, including senior leaders Ashok Bhattacharya and Jibesh Sarkar were detained from the party office in Siliguri on Wednesday in connection with an attack on a procession by Trinamool Congress workers.
The Communist Party of India - Marxist on Thursday opposed the formation of a separate Telangana state, saying it would open a pandora's box of demands for smaller states."Though it is a good initiative taken (by the Centre) to defuse the situation in Andhra Pradesh, we have been opposed to the formation of separate states. However, our opposition did not stop the formation of Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, which have seen no development," said CPI-M.
In a statement, the CPI-M Politburo contended that a political party was a voluntary association of citizens who believe in the ideology, programme and the leadership, and it was accountable only to its membership.
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