Political Parties In India

National Parties Communist Party Of India Marxist

Founded	1964
Newspaper	People's Democracy
Student wing	Students Federation of India
Youth wing	Democratic Youth Federation of India
Women's wing	All India Democratic Womens Association
Labour Wing	Centre of Indian Trade Unions
Peasant's wing	All India Kisan Sabha
Headquarters	New Delhi, India
Ideology	Communism
	Marxism-Leninism
ECI Status	Recognized National Party
Alliance	Left Front

 

Election Symbol

Introduction

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM or CPI (M) is a political party of the country with left wing Marxist ideologies. In the states like Tripura, West Bengal and Kerala, it is having a strong foundation. In Tripura, the government has been formed by this party. It is also leading the coalition of left front parties in few states and also in the parliament. The party came out of splitting in the Communist Party of India in the year 1964. As of 2009, the party claims to be having about 1,042,287 members. The principles of CPI(M) are globalization opposition, capitalism opposition and sentiments depicting imperialism and has worked strongly with philosophies of Marx.

History

The communist Party of India (Marxist) is having a good presence in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. It was formed in 1964, after splitting from the Communist party of India. Presently, it has members in legislatures of about 10 states.

The origins of the party seem to be founded in the CPI divisions, and was responsible for leading agitations in the regions of Kerala, Tripura and Telengana. When the party came into force, there was a climate of hostility in the politics. When the Calcutta Congress of the party was being held, plenty of its leaders and party workers were put into jail even without proper orders and trial. In the elections of Lok Sabha in 1967, the CPI (M) put up 59 candidates, out of which 19 got elected. During the same time, the legislative state elections were conducted, where the party emerged victorious in West Bengal and Kerala.

During a rebellion breaking out in 1967 in Naxalbari region in West Bengal in the northern region, the uprising was led by Kanu Sanyal and Charu Majumdar who were leaders of the CPI(M) at district level. It was the idea of the hardline leaders that this uprising in Naxalbari could be transformed into a national movement. The movement was but opposed with violence by the government in West Bengal, where CPI(M) was also a partner. The CPI(M) has a major presence in the left front, which has rule in West Bengal. Some of the parties in the LF are All India Forward Bloc, CPI and Revolutionary Socialist Party. In the centre, the Left Front was providing support from outside the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, but on the matter of Indo-US related nuclear issue, it withdrew support.

In the Lok Sabha, the CPI(M) has about 42 seats while in Rajya Sabha, it has 15 seats. Although presently the CPI(M) was supporting the government, in 1996, the left front was supposed to form the government when Jyoti Basu, its leader was having consensus by the United Front as the candidate for prime minister. But, the polit bureau of CPI(M), decided against government participation, which in later years was highly regretted by Jyoti Basu.

Organization

In the elections to the parliament in May 2004, 5.66% of votes went to the CPI(M), with 43 MPs making it to the parliament. Its election win had a percentage of 42.31, out of the 69 seats it had contested. It gave its outside support to the UPA government led by Congress, but withdrew its support from the government formally, in July 9, 2008, reasoning that the party did not agree with the Indo US nuclear deal, particularly the IAEA Safeguards Agreement.

In the governments of Tripura and West Bengal, it supports Left Front. In Kerala, it is also party to the Left Democratic Front. In kerala also, it is providing partnership to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party led Democratic Progressive Alliance, but withdrew support after some time. The party has also members in Great Britain, in the Unity for Peace and Socialism electoral party, in alliance with Communist Party of Britain and other parties such as Communist Party of Bangladesh as well as Communist Party of Greece, as domiciled in Britain. In the assembly elections in London in May 2008, it has 13 candidates standing in the list of candidates in London.

The Structure

• The Politburo (PB)
• The Central Committee (CC)
• State Committees
• District Committees
• Area committees
• Local committees
• Branch committees

Leadership

Presently, Prakash Karat is the CPI(M) general secretary. From March 29th to April 3,, in 2008, the party held its Central  Committee congress, which would be the 19th one, with 87 members. Then, 15 member Politburo was elected by the central committee.

• Prakash Karat
• Sitaram Yechury
• S. Ramachandran Pillai
• Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
• Manik Sarkar
• M.K. Pandhe
• Biman Bose
• Pinarayi Vijayan
• K. Varadarajan
• B.V. Raghavulu
• Brinda Karat
• Nirupam Sen
• Kodiyeri Balakrishnan
• Mohammad Amin
• M. A. Baby

V. S. Achuthanandan, who was the most senior member, was taken out of politburo in 2009 on 12th July, while the two remaining members of polit buro, who were part of the 1964 poliburo originally departed, namely Jyoti Basu and Harkishen singh Surjeet.

The Principal Mass Organizations of CPI (M)

• Democratic Youth Federation of India
• Students Federation of India
• Centre of Indian Trade Unions class organisation
• All India Kisan Sabha peasants' organization
• All India Agricultural Workers Union
• Kerala Non Gazetted Officers Union
• All India Democratic Women's Association
• Bank Employees Federation of India
• All India Lawyers Union

In Tripura, one of the major organizations of the masses is the Ganamukti Parishad, mainly for the state’s tribal population. Similarly, in kerala, there is a tribal body under CPI(M) control which is Adivasi Kshema Samithi.

Famous Ministers of the Party

Prakash Karat

Prakash Karat, was born in Letpadan in Burma in 1948 on 7th January, and is a well known politician of communist party in India and holds the general secretary post in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) since the year 2005. In 1975, he married Brinda Karat, who was a party colleague. Before becoming a member of CPI(M), full time, she was working in London in Air India office. She has gradually risen up the ranks of the party, becoming a politburo member. She belongs to West Bengal. The Karats do not have by choice any children.

Sitaram Yechury

Sitaram Yechury belongs to the politics in India, born in 1952 on 12th August, and is a prominent communist worker and leader in India. In the Communist Party of India(Marxist), he holds the politburo membership and is among the seniors in the party. He is also the leader of the party in Parliament. His wife is Seema Chisti, who was the Editor of hindi services in BBC and is associated with Indian Express as resident editor in delhi. Sitaram Yechury has a son and a daughter from this previous marriage.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was born in 1944 on 1st March, and is a Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and member of the politburo, and a famous politician in India. From 2000 to 2011, he was the West Bengal Chief Minister. For a long 24 years, he was the MLA from constituency of Jadhavpur till 13th May 2011, when he was defeated by Manish Gupta, who worked under him as chief secretary by a huge margin of 16,684 votes in 2011 West Bengal elections. He is only the second Chief Minister of West Bengal, who had to face loss in his own constituency during elections, the first one being Prafulla Chandra Sen, in the year 1967.

Some of the incidents when Buddhadeb was Chief Minister were the thwarting of the proposal to industrialise the state by TATA, which was severely opposed by Trinamool Congress, Nandigram incident, Singur land acquisition attempot and the incident related to Netaji.

Brinda Karat

Brinda Karat was born in 1947 on 17th October, and has become a prominent leader of Communist party. She was elected on 11th April 2005 to the Rajya Sabha, as a member of Communist Party of India (Marxist). She was the first ever female member to be inducted into the politburo. For long years from 1993 till 2004, she was the general secretary of AIDWA or All India Democratic Women’s Association and also its vice president. She married Prakash Karat, a member of CPI (M) and a communist leader, originally from Kerala, who is presently the general secretary of the party. She has a sister, Radhika Roy, who is married to the founder and CEP of NDTV, Prannoy Roy. She has acted in a Film called Amu in 2005, which was made by Shonali Bose, her niece, depicting the anti Sikh 1984 riots. She is also having some family relation to Vijay Prashad, a Marxist historian.