The Communist Party of India (Marxist) 24th Party Congress ended on Sunday in Madurai with a leadership shift. M.A. Baby, senior Politburo member, has been appointed as the new General Secretary of the CPI(M) and only the second from Kerala to occupy this highest position in the party's organizational structure, after the iconic E.M.S. Namboodiripad.
The appointment was finalized after the CPI(M) Central Committee, with 84 members and a vacancy, gave the nod to Baby's nomination. Senior leaders Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat relinquished membership in the Politburo, having attained the party's 75-year age limit.
Also resigning for the same reason was Manik Sarkar, the previous Chief Minister of Tripura. But all three—Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, and Manik Sarkar—will remain part of the party's core decision-making processes as special invitees to the Central Committee.
72-year-old M.A. Baby is the seniormost Kerala CPI(M) leader after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Baby entered politics in the Kerala Students Federation (KSF), which would later become the Students Federation of India (SFI). Baby became national president of the SFI and was also key figures in the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI).
Baby was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to 1998 and subsequently served two consecutive terms in the Kerala Legislative Assembly as a member from Kundara (2006–2016). He was Kerala's Minister for Education from 2006 to 2011. He has been a member of the Politburo since 2012.
His appointment as General Secretary is a milestone event, considering that only another leader from Kerala, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, has been in this post before him. EMS had previously worked in a similar capacity in the pre-division CPI in the early 1950s and subsequently served as CPI(M)'s General Secretary between 1978 and 1991.
Party sources say that Baby's choice was not without opposition within. Five of the 16 members of the Politburo—Surya Kanta Mishra, Nilotpal Basu, Mohammed Salim, Ramchandra Dome (all from West Bengal), and Ashok Dhawale (from Maharashtra)—opposed the appointment, according to reports.
This notwithstanding, former General Secretary Prakash Karat suggested only Baby for the job. His name was then ratified by the Central Committee.
Curiously, the party exempted itself from its age criterion in a few instances. Both P.K. Sreemathy and Mohammed Yousuf Tarigami were retained in the Central Committee even as they crossed the age limit. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is currently 79, was also exempted from age to remain as a member of the committee.
The reconstituted Politburo brings in a number of new faces, such as Mariam Dhawale, Jitendra Chaudhury, Amra Ram, Vijoo Krishnan, Arun Kumar, Srideep Bhattacharya, U. Vasuki, and K. Balakrishnan. With Vasuki and Balakrishnan joining, Tamil Nadu has double representation in the party's top policy-making body.
In a significant addition, journalist-turned-politician and Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas has been appointed a special invitee to the Central Committee.
At the same time, Dr. D.L. Karad, a senior leader from Maharashtra and state CITU president, contested a Central Committee seat but garnered only 31 votes. When asked by the media, he said that he contested "at the request of colleagues from Maharashtra" and added that the outcome meant little to him since the process was "democratic.
The 24th Party Congress was a groundbreaking event for the CPI(M) with a landmark change of leadership across generations and a reminder of the ideological and strategic challenges that await us.
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