D Raja is appointed the general secretary of the Communist Party of India
Rajya Sabha member D Raja is appointed the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Senior Communist Party of India (CPI) leader and Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu D Raja was appointed party general secretary, taking over from S Sudhakar Reddy, who stepped down on health grounds. Reddy stepped down with almost two years left to complete his term as general secretary.
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Addressing a press conference after his appointment, Raja said the party’s fight against “retrograde” forces would continue. “The country is going through a critical period under the fascist regime of (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi. The Left might have lost seats in the Lok Sabha elections and might have been reduced to a smaller force in Parliament, but it does not mean that we have shrunk within the country or our ideological and political influence has shrunk,” Raja told a press conference.
The veteran CPI leader also claimed that while the BJP might have won the electoral battle, the saffron party was far from being victorious in the social arena.
“The BJP government may have won the electoral battle but not the social or the political one. We want all communist parties to come together. We will have to rework our strategies. That’s what our parties are trying to do,” he said.
CPI National Council, the top decision-making body of the party, met on Thursday and Friday to elect Raja, who was unanimously endorsed by all the executive members as the new general secretary.
The leadership change in the CPI comes at a time when Communist parties are facing an existential crisis of sorts after their worst-ever performance in the Lok Sabha elections.
About CPI – Lok Sabha Elections
It is the second-largest party in Indian Politics
But they face a worse crisis in the electoral numbers at an all-time low.
The party got only two seats in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
The candidates who won the election belongs to Tamil Nadu.
About D Raja
He is a politician and the member of Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu.
He belongs to the Communist Party of India.
He belongs to the National Secretary of the Party from 1994 to 2019.
He is a two-time Rajya Sabha member from Tamil Nadu.
His term at the Upper House ends on 24 July.