CPI to witness leadership change in 2012: A.B. Bardhan

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After the severe drubbing at the hustings in West Bengal, the CPI on Wednesday said it would witness leadership change at the party Congress in 2012.

However, general secretary A.B. Bardhan said the proposed change in leadership had "nothing to do" with the recent debacle suffered by the Left, especially in the strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala.

"Our party constitution provides that no general secretary can continue for more than three terms. All I can tell you is that there will be a change as far as the CPI is concerned. I have completed my term," the 86-year-old communist leader said in response to a question at a press conference here.

"We will have our 21st party Congress in Patna in March 2012. That is where a new leadership is elected. But this change has nothing to do with the recent developments. We always take responsibility both at the collective and individual levels," Bardhan, who succeeded Indrajit Gupta as CPI general secretary in 1996, said.

Briefing journalists on a two-day meeting of the party's national executive here, he said the CPI and other parties would sit together and decide on launching nationwide agitations soon on the policies of the UPA government.

The issues to be raised during these protests would include price rise, food security, land acquisition and corruption.

In case the CPI Congress in March 2012 accepts the proposal of Bardhan to retire as the general secretary, the front-runner for the crucial post would be deputy general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, a two-time MP from Nalgonda constituency in Andhra Pradesh.

The party Congress, held every three years, is considered the highest political platform of a communist party where its national leadership debates political issues and chalks out strategies.

Bardhan, born on September 25, 1925 in Sylhet (now in Bangladesh), began his political career during freedom struggle as a leader of the all India students federation. He later rose to become a fiery trade union leader in Nagpur and the general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress.

Maintaining that it would be wrong to term the Bengal Assembly poll results as an electoral setback, the veteran communist said such a description "will be trivialising the whole thing. It is in fact a big political defeat for the Left and we must accept it".

Observing that these results would have an impact on national politics as well, Bardhan said he was convinced that democracy and the need for social change in India "cannot go forward without the Left which has to play a big role".

"We wish to prepare our party for this task on the basis of the lessons drawn from our mistakes," he said.

He also asserted that the Left Front in West Bengal and Left Democratic Front in Kerala would continue despite the severe electoral setbacks.

"We will function as a constructive opposition (in the two states). We have no intention of being confrontationist or boycottist. But we will fight on all issues where the rights and welfare of the people are concerned," he said.