CPM a bagful of undemocratic organisational practices

Speaking to The Indian Express,Singh accused the incumbent party leadership,led by general secretary Prakash Karat,of suppressing every voice that questions them. Singh said Varada Rajans suicide is a classic case of how undemocratic the party set-up is,adding that it throttles party workers.

Varada Rajan had objected to the presence of three members of the same family in the central committee (R Uma Nath,his wife Pappa Uma Nath and daughter U Vasuki). This invited the ire of the party, alleged Singh.

Singh,once an MLA in the Punjab Assembly and later the director of a cooperative bank,claimed he was targeted for voicing his views that went against the party establishment and the top brass. He claimed he had also opposed the decision to withdraw support to UPA-I on the issue of the India-US nuclear deal,which didnt go down too well with the party.

The CPM is a bagful of undemocratic organisational practices. They expelled me without giving or showing me the copy of the complaint against me. There was no chargesheet. I was not given a chance to defend myself, he said.

Worse still,it took the party barely a month to announce action against me during a meeting in Kolkata. For 15 days after the alleged incident,nobody questioned me. It all happened when I went to the US to meet my son, he said.

Pointing out that the logical action in such a case would have been to file a police complaint,he said that no such complaint was filed in his case. The inquiry commission was set up only after I protested. When the commission,comprising Central Committee member Shyamali Gupta and Politburo member M K Pandhe,met me,I asked for a copy of the complaint. They turned down the request, claimed Singh. He said he then spoke to Sitaram Yechury,who sympathised with him and agreed that he should get a copy of the complaint,but all to no avail.

After he was expelled,Singh said he filed a detailed rejoinder. I am yet to get a reply from the party which could assuage my hurt feelings. I did so much for the party,gave a lifetime for it. But look at the manner in which I was treated. There are so many party leaders who were left unsung,unwept, he said.

Singh joined the CPM in 1969. A year later,he quit his job as a government college lecturer to become the president of the CITUs Punjab unit,a post he served for 18 years. He was a member of the Central Committee for 15 years.

After his expulsion,Singh reportedly filed a defamation suit against Karat and others in the local courts of Chandigarh,seeking damages of Rs 1 crore.

Accusing the party leadership of trying to secure their own positions,he said: How else do you explain the fact that the CPMs organisational elections,which were scheduled to be held in August,have been postponed for an unexplained long period.

Singh said he was in the line of fire because of his proximity to the late Harkishan Singh Surjeet. The party even targeted Surjeet. He had to face several charges including corruption and siphoning of funds. I was then a Central Committee member. My evidence was crucial,and ultimately truth triumphed, he said.

CPM state secretary Charan Singh Virdi,when contacted,said: Balwant Singh was expelled for gross misconduct. His allegations are baseless. Proper procedure was adopted before action was initiated against him.

Cracking the whip

The CPM suspended Kerala CM V S Achuthanandan and Kerala unit secretary Pinarayi Vijayan in 2007 from the Politburo for openly criticising each other. It revoked the suspension five months later.

Achuthanandan was removed from the Politburo in July 2009 on charges of indiscipline and violating organisational principle. His crime: he did not adhere to the party line that the SNC-Lavalin corruption case against Pinarayi Vijayan was politically motivated.

The then Speaker of the Lok Sabha,Somnath Chatterjee,was expelled in July 2008 on the charges of violating party discipline by not resigning from his post despite a party directive to the effect. Chatterjee had been under pressure to quit the constitutional post after the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA-I following their differences over the India-US nuclear deal.

A P Abdullakutty,the CPM MP from Kannur,was expelled in March 2009,after he praised Gujarat CM Narendra Modis development model,on the charge of breach of discipline by joining class enemies. He had also been censured for his participation in religious rituals.

G Ramachandra Rao,a state committee member in Andhra Pradesh,was expelled from the primary membership of the party in 2008 on charges of indiscipline and false propaganda against the party. Rao had openly cricitised the dictatorial tendencies shown by the partys state leadership and had even walked out of the CPMs state conference,alleging that some leaders were dominating the proceedings and were not allowing others to air their views.

The CPM Central Committee had publicly censured the late Subhas Chakraborty,who was a member of the State Secretariat of West Bengal,for challenging the party line in the run-up to the July 22 trust vote. Chakraborty,like Chatterjee,had publicly criticised the CPMs decision to vote with the BJP in the trust vote.