The Hindu : Front Page : Surjeet offers to step down

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 11, 2005

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Front Page

Surjeet offers to step down

By K.V. Prasad

NEW DELHI, APRIL 10. Veteran Marxist Harkishan Singh Surjeet, tonight offered to relinquish as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) after serving for four successive terms.

Mr. Surjeet, 89, is understood to have conveyed his offer at a meeting of the party leaders here this evening on the grounds of advance age and indifferent health. During the past two weeks, the Marxist leader had publicly admitted, in a voice that was barely audible, that his eyesight has been failing. Mr. Surjeet, who stepped into the shoes after E.M.S. Namboodripad, was confirmed as general secretary by the 14th Congress at Chennai in 1992 and was last re-elected at the 17th Hyderabad Congress in 2002.

The Polit Bureau is understood to have accepted his offer and the matter would now be discussed by the Central Committee, the empowered body, at its meeting tomorrow morning. The offer comes on the eve of the election of a new Central Committee by the 18th Party Congress that concludes its six-day session tomorrow.

The congress would elect a new committee, which in turn would elect a Polit Bureau to run the day-to-day affairs of the party. The Polit Bureau member, Prakash Karat, is widely tipped to take the place of Mr. Surjeet.

Living legends

Mr. Surjeet — who along with another veteran Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, has been hailed as the "living legends" of the Communists — has played a pivotal role in the national politics that got accentuated in the era of coalition governments.

His stellar role in piecing together political parties across the socialist spectrum fills contemporary political history. He was in the forefront when the National Front Government of Vishwanath Pratap Singh came into being in 1989.

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