Jitendra Chaudhary becomes CPI(M) politburo member; new faces from Tripura in party’s central committee

Manik Sarkar, 76, stepped down from his position as politburo member as the party now has a 75-year upper age limit for retirement from major leadership positions.

Jitendra Chaudhury, who was named CPI(M) state secretary in September 2021 after the demise of his predecessor Goutam Das, had served for four terms as minister in successive Manik Sarkar cabinets from 1993 to 2014.

Chaudhury first joined Left politics through CPI(M) student wing SFI in 1971. A decade later, in 1981, he joined full-time politics and rose to the CPI(M)’s state committee seven years later.

First elected to the Tripura Assembly in 1993, he served as minister for rural development, forest, information, and technology, among others, and was elected to the Lok Sabha from the East Tripura constituency in 2014.

Chaudhury is also president of Tripura Rajya Gana Mukti Parishad, the tribal wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

At the 24th CPI(M) party congress held in Madurai on Sunday, M A Baby was elected as the general secretary of the politburo. The other members of the politburo are Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, B V Raghavulu, Tapan Sen, Nilotpal Basu, Md Selim, A Vijayaraghavan, Ashok Dhawale, Ramchandra Dome, M V Govindan Master and new inductees Amra Ram, Vijoo Krishnan, Mariam Dhawale, U Vasuki, K Balakrishnan, Srideep Bhattacharya and Arun Kumar, beside Jitendra Chaudhury.

Former ministers Manik Dey, Naresh Jamatia, Ratan Bhowmik, and woman leader Krishna Rakshit were elected to the 85-member CPI(M) central committee from Tripura on Sunday.