CPM keeps up cleansing drive in run-up to panchayat polls

KOLKATA: In the face of multiple defeats in electoral battles and with an eye on the 2018 panchayat polls, the CPM has decided to keep up with the rectification drive to cleanse the party of graft politicians.

The Burdwan unit of the CPM has recently expelled state secretariat member Ainul Haque for anti-party activities. “We have information that Haque is maintaining secret rapport with Trinamool Congress and supplying them with secrets about us,“ Achintya Mullik, the CPM district secretary, had announced.

Expulsion of Haque might cost CPM dear in the run-up to the November 19 byelections to the Manteswar Assembly seat, which falls under the Burdwan district. Haque, who led the Burdwan Municipality for a decade since 2004, was the party's minority face in the district and had contested the Burdwan South Assembly seat this year.


Earlier CPM had expelled another minority face, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, who had joined Trinamool Congress and is now a minister in Mamata Banerjee's government. The party had previously expelled Lakshman Seth, a former MP from the Tamluk Lok Sabha seat. Seth was reportedly responsible for the Nandigram massacre of 2003, which claimed 14 lives, besides giving Mamata Banerjee an opportunity to mobilise public opinion against forcible land acquisition by the CPM-led government.

In the 2011 Assembly elections, the CPM had got about 29.58 per cent of the total votes. During 2014 Parliamentary elections, the party's vote share dropped to 23 per cent. In this year's Assembly polls, the party's vote share dipped further to 19.7 per cent of the total votes polled.