Prakash Karat was re-elected CPI(M) general secretary for the third consecutive term and Kerala leader M.A. Baby inducted into its politburo at the party’s 20th triennial congress which concluded here Monday.
For Mr Karat. 64, first elected general secretary at the 18th New Delhi congress in 2005 and re-elected in Coimbatore in 2008, this will be his last term. An amendment to the party constitution, effected this time, limits the tenure of the general secretary and secretaries to three terms.
The congress elected an 89-member central committee, and kept two seats vacant. Besides Mr Baby, two other new politburo entrants are West Bengal’s Leader of the Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra and Citu president A.K. Padmanabhan. Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who did not attend the congress due to ill health, remains in the 15-member politburo.
The re-entry of former Kerala chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, removed from the politburo in 2009, was stalled by the state leadership headed by Pinarayi Vijayan.
***
Pak scientist Chisty, 80, is granted bail
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, April 9
The Supreme Court Monday granted bail to 80-year-old Pakistani microbiologist Moha-mmad Khalil Chisty, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder, a day after his plight was raised by the delegation accompanying Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to New Delhi and Ajmer.
Karachi-based Chisty, belonging to a family of Ajmer dargah caretakers, was on a visit there to visit his ailing mother 20 years ago when he got caught up in an scuffle which led to the death of one person. A bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and J. Chelmeswar allowed his bail plea on humanitarian grounds. On his plea for deportation, and to be allowed to stay in Delhi till then, the court asked his counsel to file a separate petition.