CPI elects Sudhakar Reddy as General Secretary, Gurudas Dasgupta as Deputy General Secretary

PUDUCHERRY: CPI today re-elected S Sudhakar Reddy as the general secretary for the second three-year term and elected senior leader Gurudas Dasgupta as deputy general secretary on the concluding day of its 22nd Congress here.

Veteran communist leader A B Bardhan was unanimously elected Chairman of a newly-created Permanent Programme Committee which would review the party's programme regularly on the basis of the emerging national economic and political scenario.

The party also elected a nine-member central secretariat, comprising Reddy, Dasgupta, D Raja, Shameem Faizee, Amarjeet Kaur, Atul Kumar Anjaan, Ramendrakumar, Pannian Ravindran and K Narayana.

The 22nd Congress elected a 32-member national executive and a 124-member national council during the Congress. A Party Congress is held every three years.

More than 20 per cent of the members of the National Council and the National Executive were new faces, party National Council Secretary Shameem Faizee told reporters at the conclusion of its five-day 22nd Party Congress here.

The party elected a nine-member central control commission with leaders like E Nageshwara Rao from Andhra Pradesh, Manohar Deshkar from Maharashtra and C A Kurian from Kerala.

Reddy, after being elected as the General Secretary for the second term, said there were lively discussions at the meet and the party had decided to re-establish its "independent image" as champion of the downtrodden sections.

He underscored the need for Left unity to defend secularism, constitutional right to speech, democracy and cultural independence. "The delegates provided valuable suggestions to strengthen the party from root level", he said.