Four-day national council of CPI begins in Puducherry

The four-day national council meeting of the Communist Party of India began here on Saturday. Around 150-delegates, including party general secretary D. Raja, State Ministers, Members of Parliament and legislators, have reached Puducherry for the meeting.

On the first day, party secretariat and executive committee meetings would be held. The national council would commence on Sunday and on the same day evening a seminar on Puducherry’s Statehood and role of Governors and Lt Governors will be held.

Puducherry unit secretary A. M Saleem said the seminar would deliberate on Puducherry’s long pending demand for Statehood and the extra-constitutional powers that Governors exert in non-BJP ruled States.

“For us (local leaders) the national council is a big event as it is held in Puducherry for the first time. The party’s local unit has a long history starting with mobilisation of trade unions against the French rule. And our leader Subbiah played the most important role in the Union Territory’s liberation struggle,” he said.

The local leadership, he said, had decided to utilise the national council as an opportunity to give Puducherry’s Statehood demand a national importance. Prominent leaders of CPI (M), DMK and VCK will participate in the seminar, he added. “It is a chance for us to explain to our national leadership how the rights of the Union Territory are destroyed by the Central government through the post of Lieutenant Governor,” he added.

The national council will come out with a resolution on the role of Governors and Lt. Governors in a federal polity. The council will also discuss about electoral strategies to be adopted to defeat the BJP at the national level, he said.