VISAKHAPATNAM: With one more day left for the inaugural of its 21st Party Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is leaving no stone unturned to use the conference as a platform to inspire the party rank and file and reclaim the lost ground. Just one year away from the Assembly elections in Kerala and West Bengal, the bastions of the red party in India, the CPM is keen to bring all like-minded people together and strengthen its vote base.
Sending a strong message for Left unity, the national leaders of all Left parties including CPM, CPI, Forward Bloc and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) would attend the inaugural session of the Party Congress to be held in the city from April 14 to 19. For the first time, non-CPM Left party leaders would also participate in the inaugural session of the CPM party congress.
“The unity of Left parties is high on our agenda and precisely for this reason, the leaders from other Left parties would address the inaugural session. The Left parties have been working together on many issues in the combined Andhra Pradesh and this would now be extended to the national level,” CPM politburo member BV Raghavulu told newsmen Sunday.
A galaxy of leaders of all Left parties would arrive in the city Sunday and Monday to attend the six-day CPM party congress. CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, politburo members Brinda Karat, Sitaram Yechury, S Ramachandran Pillai, AK Padmanabhan, Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, MA Baby, K Varadarajan, Suryakanta Mishra, Biman Basu and Manik Sarkar would arrive in Vizag before Monday evening.
Besides the CPM national leaders, CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, Forward Bloc general secretary Debabrata Biswas, RSP senior leader Abani Roy, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) general secretary Prabhas Ghosh, and Kavitha Krishnan of CPI (ML) Liberation would take part in the inaugural session.
Speaking to mediamen, Raghavulu admitted that the Left parties have suffered setbacks in different states and lost public support, which would be introspected and analysed during the party conference besides discussing the future strategies including the advent of social media, which has huge impact on the younger generations.
“There is a need to adopt changing technologies like social media to connect with the general public, especially the youth. The party’s performance over the last 25 years including its tactical line and ideological line would be discussed threadbare at the meet,” he explained. He reiterated that only the Left parties can protect the interests of the poor and there is an immediate need for them to join hands.
More than 900 delegates will participate in the conference wherein the CPM’s new leadership will be elected.
On April 19, a rally will be taken out from RTC Complex to RK Beach followed by a public meeting at the beach.