Date:13/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/13/stories/2006091302621300.htm

National

CPI(M) Polit Bureau meet begins

Special Correspondent

Organisational note on consolidating party's strength to be finalised

PHOTO: SUSHANTA PATRONOBISH

TO EXTEND INFLUENCE: (From right) Veteran CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat and Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar at the party Polit Bureau meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday.

KOLKATA: The two-day meeting of the Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India [Marxist] began here on Tuesday.

The meeting has gained significance as it is being held less than a fortnight ahead of the party's Central Committee meeting to be held in New Delhi.

The former general secretary of the party, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, did not attend it because of failing health.

On the agenda is the finalisation by the CPI(M) Polit Bureau of an organisational note, which is to be placed before the party's Central Committee at its three-day meeting beginning in the Capital on September 24.

The note is expected to lay emphasis on extending the party's influence in States across the country where it is yet to be a dominant political force as well as to consolidate its strength in areas where it has been able to establish a significant presence.

Certain States singled out

At an earlier meeting, the Polit Bureau had singled out certain States and given some of its members the responsibility to oversee the strengthening of the party base and its frontal organisations there. The States include Uttar Pradesh and Punjab where Assembly elections are due next year.

In the course of the on-going deliberations of the Polit Bureau, an assessment will be made of the impact of the CPI(M)'s month-long nationwide campaign in August on issues of employment, food security and prices, welfare of the farmers and tribal rights, drawn up by the party's Central Committee at an earlier meeting.

The campaign in some areas has spilled over to September, according to the Secretary of the party's State Committee in West Bengal, Biman Bose.

It involved the holding of public meetings in more than 200 places across the country where the failure of the United Progressive Alliance Government to deliver on vital economic issues was highlighted.

The CPI(M) leadership has been critical of the Government for not keeping to its commitment to serve the interests of the common man in regard to certain major economic policies as had been spelt out in the Common Minimum Programme.