Key to CPI(M)’s Bengal revival plans, Minakshi Mukherjee now in party’s Central Committee

Mukherjee, 40, has both age and experience on her side. She led the recent protests against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the R G Kar case, and was also active in the demonstrations against the Mamata Banerjee-led government in the Sandeshkhali incident and the Anis Khan murder case. She came into national prominence when the party fielded her against Banerjee and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari from Nandigram in 2021. At the time, she was 36 years old and given the responsibility of making a mark in an election that almost no one expected her to win. Though she did not win, the 2.74% of the votes that she polled proved decisive in a poll battle where the difference between the winner (Adhikari) and the runner-up (Banerjee) was less than 1% point.

A resident of Chalbalpur village in Paschim Bardhaman district, Mukherjee was inducted into the DYFI’s local committee in 2008, when the party had started losing its grip on West Bengal after ruling it for over three decades. Both her parents are CPI(M) members, with her father associated with the All India Kisan Sabha and her mother a member of the women’s wing of the party. As the party kept floundering electorally, it zeroed in on a group of youth leaders to help it get back on track. Among them was Mukherjee, who completed her master’s degree in political science from Burdwan University. Her oratorical skills and dedication to the party aided her rise through the DYFI ranks and, by 2018, she became its state president. The same year, she was also inducted into the CPI(M)’s state committee.

In 2021, Mukherjee was appointed the DYFI state secretary, a post she continues to hold. Though she lost the election from Nandigram, her popularity in party ranks was undiminished. Last year, when the CPI(M) organised a rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, the focus was on the youth, especially leaders such as Mukherjee, A A Rahim, Himagnaraj Bhattacharya, and Kalatan Dasgupta, and Students’ Federation of India (SFI) leader Srijan Bhattacharya.

Mukherjee is not the only new woman inductee in the Central Committee. All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) state secretary Kaninika Ghosh has also been included in the party’s top decision-making body.

Apart from them, CPI(M) district secretaries Saman Pathak, a trade union leader in the Darjeeling Hills; Syed Hussain in Purba Bardhaman, and Debabrata Ghosh in Hooghly are also the new entrants into the Central Committee from Bengal. Pathak’s father, Ananda Pathak, was also a Central Committee member.