Communist Party of India

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Template:Short description Template:Other uses Template:Pp-extended Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Indian English Template:Infobox Indian political party Template:Communist Parties Template:Communism in India Template:Marxism–Leninism sidebar The Communist Party of India (CPI) is a political party in India. The CPI considers the December 26, 1925 Cawnpore (Kanpur) conference as its foundation date.<ref name="auto2">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Between 1946 and 1951, the CPI led militant struggles such as the peasant revolt in Telangana, organising guerrilla warfare against feudal lords.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> The CPI was the main opposition party in India during the 1950s to 1960s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1964, a split in the CPI led to the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which eventually emerged as the larger of the two parties. CPI supported the rule of Indira Gandhi, but later changed course and embraced left unity. CPI was part of the ruling United Front government from 1996 to 1998 and had two ministers under the Devegowda and Gujral ministries.

Template:As of, the CPI has two members in the Lok Sabha and two members in the Rajya Sabha. In addition, it has 20 MLAs across three states and one each in the MLCs of Bihar and Telangana. It is designated a state party by the Election Commission of India Template:As of in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Manipur.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> As of December 2023, the CPI is part of the Left Democratic Front coalition that forms the state government in Kerala. The CPI have four Cabinet Ministers and a Deputy Speaker in Kerala. In Tamil Nadu, it is in power as part of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Secular Progressive Alliance coalition.

Name

The CPI is officially known in Hindi as the Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang), or Template:Transliteration (Template:Lang).

History

Formation

The Communist Party of India (CPI) was formed on 26 December 1925 at the first Party Conference in Kanpur, which was then known as Cawnpore. S. V. Ghate was the first General Secretary of the CPI. There were many communist groups formed by Indians with the help of foreigners in different parts of the world, a group formed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan made contacts with the Anushilan and Jugantar groups in Bengal, and small communist groups were formed in Bombay (led by Shripad Amrit Dange), Madras (led by Singaravelar), the United Provinces (led by Shaukat Usmani), Punjab, Sindh (led by Ghulam Hussain), Orissa (led by Bhagabati Charan Panigrahi) and Bengal (led by Muzaffar Ahmad).

The CPI's year of formation is disputed. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), which split from the CPI in 1964, considers 17 October 1920 to be the CPI's founding day. On that day, M. N. Roy, Evelyn Trent-Roy, Abani Mukherji, Rosa Fitingov, Mohd. Ali, Mohamad Shafiq, and M. P. T. Acharya met in Tashkent to form the communist movement in India. Neither the 1920 nor 1925 dates are considered significant by the Communist International, because the CPI did not adopt a party constitution on either occasion, which was one of the main prerequisites for membership in the international.<ref name="Karat">Template:Cite book</ref>

Involvement in independence struggle

Template:Further information During the 1920s and the early 1930s the party was poorly organised, and in practice there were several communist groups working with limited national co-ordination. The government banned all communist activity, which made the task of building a united party difficult. Between 1921 and 1924, there were three conspiracy trials against the communist movement: the Peshawar Conspiracy Cases, the Meerut Conspiracy Case, and the Kanpur Bolshevik Conspiracy Case. In the first three cases, Russian-trained muhajir communists were put on trial. However, the Kanpur trial had more political impact. On 17 March 1924, Dange, M. N. Roy, Ahmad, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani, Malayapuram Singaravelu, Ghulam Hussain, and R. C. Sharma were charged, in the Kanpur case. The specific pip charge was that they as communists were seeking "to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India, by complete separation of India from Britain by a violent revolution." Pages of newspapers daily splashed sensational communist plans and people for the first time learned, on such a large scale, about communism and its doctrines and the aims of the Communist International in India.<ref name="Ralhan, O.P.">Ralhan, O. P. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Political Parties New Delhi: Anmol Publications p. 336, Rao. pp. 89–91.</ref>

Singaravelu Chettiar was released on account of illness. M. N. Roy was in Germany and R. C. Sharma in French Pondichéry, and therefore could not be arrested. Ghulam Hussain confessed that he had received money from the Russians in Kabul and was pardoned. Muzaffar Ahmad, Nalini Gupta, Shaukat Usmani and Dange were sentenced for various terms of imprisonment. This case was responsible for actively introducing communism to a larger Indian audience.<ref name="Ralhan, O.P."/> Dange was released from prison in 1927. Rahul Dev Pal was a prominent communist leader.

On 26 December 1925, a communist conference was organised in Kanpur.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Government authorities estimated that 500 persons took part in the conference. The conference was convened by a man called Satya Bhakta. At the conference Satyabhakta argued for a national communism and against subordination under the Comintern. Being outvoted by the other delegates, Satyabhakta left the conference venue in protest. The conference adopted the name 'Communist Party of India'. Groups such as Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan (LKPH) dissolved into the CPI.<ref>M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 92-93</ref> The émigré CPI, which probably had little organic character anyway, was effectively substituted by the organisation now operating inside India.

Soon after the 1926 conference of the Workers and Peasants Party (WPP) of Bengal, the underground CPI directed its members to join the provincial WPPs. All open communist activities were carried out through Workers and Peasants parties.<ref>M. V. S. Koteshwar Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 111</ref>

The sixth congress of the Communist International met in 1928. In 1927 the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The Colonial theses of the sixth Comintern congress called upon the Indian communists to combat the "national-reformist leaders" and to "unmask the national reformism of the Indian National Congress and oppose all phrases of the Swarajists, Gandhists, etc. about passive resistance".<ref name="saha">Saha, Murari Mohan (ed.), Documents of the Revolutionary Socialist Party: Volume One 1938–1947. Agartala: Lokayata Chetana Bikash Society, 2001. p. 21-25</ref> The congress did however differentiate between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang and the Indian Swaraj Party, considering the latter as neither a reliable ally nor a direct enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to use the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.<ref>M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 47-48</ref> The congress also denounced the WPP. The Tenth Plenum of the executive committee of the Communist International, 3–19 July 1929, directed the Indian communists to break with WPP. When the communists deserted it, the WPP fell apart.<ref>M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 97-98, 111–112</ref>

Portrait of 25 of the Meerut prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B. F. Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle row: R. R. Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K. N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmad. Front row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R. S. Nimbkar, S. S. Mirajkar, S. A. Dange, S. V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.

On 20 March 1929, arrests against the WPP, CPI and other labour leaders were made in several parts of India, in what became known as the Meerut Conspiracy Case. The communist leadership was now put behind bars. The trial proceedings were to last for four years.<ref>Ralhan, O.P. (ed.). Encyclopaedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 23. Revolutionary Movements (1930–1946). New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 2002. p. 689-691</ref><ref>M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 96</ref>

As of 1934, the main centres of activity of CPI were Bombay, Calcutta and Punjab. The party had also begun extending its activities to Madras. A group of Andhra and Tamil students, amongst them Puchalapalli Sundarayya, were recruited to the CPI by Amir Hyder Khan.<ref name="ems7">E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 7</ref> The party was reorganised in 1933, after the communist leaders from the Meerut trials were released. A central committee of the party was set up. In 1934, the party was accepted as the Indian section of the Communist International.<ref>Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 25</ref>

When Indian left-wing elements formed the Congress Socialist Party in 1934, the CPI branded it as social fascist.<ref name="saha"/>

The League Against Gandhism, initially known as the Gandhi Boycott Committee, was a political organisation in Calcutta, founded by the underground Communist Party of India and others to launch militant anti-Imperialist activities. The group took the name League Against Gandhism in 1934.<ref>Roy Subodh, Communism in India – Unpublished Documents 1925–1934. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 338-339, 359–360</ref>

In connection with the change of policy of the Comintern toward popular front politics, the Indian communists changed their relation to the Indian National Congress. The communists joined the Congress Socialist Party, which worked as the left-wing of Congress. Through joining CSP, the CPI accepted the CSP demand for a Constituent Assembly, which it had denounced two years before. The CPI however analysed that the demand for a Constituent Assembly would not be a substitute for soviets.<ref name="mnroy">Roy, Samaren. M. N. Roy: A Political Biography. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1998. p. 113, 115</ref>

In July 1937, a clandestine meeting was held at Calicut.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Five persons were present at the meeting, P. Krishna Pillai, K. Damodaran, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, N. C. Sekhar and S.V. Ghate. The first four were members of the CSP in Kerala. The CPI in Kerala was formed on 31 December 1939 with the Pinarayi Conference.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The latter, Ghate, was a CPI Central Committee member, who had arrived from Madras.<ref>E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 6</ref> Contacts between the CSP in Kerala and the CPI had begun in 1935, when P. Sundarayya (CC member of CPI, based in Madras at the time) met with E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Krishna Pillai. Sundarayya and Ghate visited Kerala at several times and met with the CSP leaders there. The contacts were facilitated through the national meetings of the Congress, CSP and All India Kisan Sabha.<ref name="ems7"/>

In 1936–1937, the co-operation between socialists and communists reached its peak. At the 2nd congress of the CSP, held in Meerut in January 1936, a thesis was adopted which declared that there was a need to build 'a united Indian Socialist Party based on Marxism-Leninism'.<ref>E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 44</ref> At the 3rd CSP congress, held in Faizpur, several communists were included into the CSP National Executive Committee.<ref>E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 45</ref>

Two communists, E. M. S. Namboodiripad and Z. A. Ahmed, became All India joint secretaries of CSP. The CPI also had two other members inside the CSP executive.<ref name="mnroy"/>

On the occasion of the 1940 Ramgarh Congress Conference, CPI released a declaration called Proletarian Path, which sought to use the weakened state of the British Empire in the time of war and gave a call for general strike, no-tax, no-rent policies and mobilising for an armed revolutionary uprising. The National Executive of the CSP assembled at Ramgarh took a decision that all communists were expelled from CSP.<ref>Ralhan, O. P. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Political Parties – India – Pakistan – Bangladesh – National -Regional – Local. Vol. 24. Socialist Movement in India. New Delhi: Anmol Publications, 1997. p. 82</ref>

In July 1942, the CPI was legalised, as a result of Britain and the Soviet Union becoming allies against Nazi Germany.<ref>Surjeet, Harkishan Surjeet. March of the Communist Movement in India – An Introduction to the Documents of the History of the Communist Movement in India. Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1998. p. 55</ref> Communists strengthened their control over the All India Trade Union Congress. At the same time, communists were politically cornered for their opposition to the Quit India Movement.<ref name="newsclick.in">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

CPI contested the Provincial Legislative Assembly elections of 1946 on its own. It had candidates in 108 out of 1585 seats, winning in eight seats. In total, the CPI vote counted 666,723, which should be seen with the backdrop that 86% of the adult population of India lacked voting rights. The party had contested three seats in Bengal, and won all of them. One CPI candidate, Somnath Lahiri, was elected to the Constituent Assembly.<ref>M. V. S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front – Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 207.</ref>

The Communist Party of India opposed the partition of India and did not participate in the Independence Day celebrations of 15 August 1947 in protest at the division of the country.<ref name="Bandyopadhyay2009">Template:Cite book</ref>

After independence

The Telangana armed struggle (1946–1952), was a peasant rebellion by communists against the feudal lords of the Telangana region in the princely state of Hyderabad.
Guerrillas of the Telangana armed struggle
CPI election campaign in Karol Bagh, Delhi, for the 1952 Indian general election
First Council of Ministers, First CPI Ministry in Kerala

During the period around and directly following Independence in 1947, the internal situation in the party was chaotic. The party shifted rapidly between left-wing and right-wing positions. In February 1948, at the 2nd Party Congress in Calcutta, B. T. Ranadive (BTR) was elected General Secretary of the party.<ref>Chandra, Bipan & others (2000). India after Independence 1947–2000, New Delhi:Penguin, Template:ISBN, p. 204</ref> The conference adopted the "Programme of Democratic Revolution", which included the first mention of struggle against caste injustice in a CPI document.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In several areas the party led armed struggles against a series of local monarchs that were reluctant to give up their power. Such insurgencies took place in Tripura, Telangana and Kerala.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The most important rebellion took place in Telangana, against the Nizam of Hyderabad. The communists built up a people's army and militia and controlled an area with a population of three million. The rebellion was brutally crushed and the party abandoned the policy of armed struggle. BTR was deposed and denounced as a left adventurist.

In Manipur, the party became a force to reckon with through the agrarian struggles led by Jananeta Irawat Singh. Singh had joined CPI in 1946.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At the 1951 party congress, the main slogan was changed from People's Democracy to National Democracy.<ref>E. M. S. Namboodiripad. The Communist Party in Kerala – Six Decades of Struggle and Advance. New Delhi: National Book Centre, 1994. p. 273</ref>

A Communist Party was founded in Bihar in 1939. Post independence, the Communist Party achieved success in Bihar (Bihar and Jharkhand). The Communist Party conducted movements for land reform, and the trade union movement was at its peak in Bihar in the 1960s–1980s. The achievements of communists in Bihar placed the communists in the forefront of the left movement in India.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Bihar produced some of the most well-known leaders like Kishan leaders Sahajanand Saraswati and Karyanand Sharma, intellectuals like Jagannath Sarkar, Yogendra Sharma, and Indradeep Sinha, mass leaders like Chandrasekhar Singh and Sunil Mukherjee, trade union leaders like Kedar Das and others.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the Mithila region of Bihar, Bhogendra Jha led the fight against the Mahants and Zamindars. He later went on the win Parliamentary elections and was MP for seven terms.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the early 1950s, young communist leadership was uniting textile workers, bank employees and unorganised sector workers to ensure mass support in north India. National leaders like Shripad Amrit Dange, Chandra Rajeswara Rao, and P. K. Vasudevan Nair were encouraging them and supporting the idea despite their differences on the execution. Firebrand Communist leaders like Homi F. Daji, Guru Radha Kishan, H. L. Parwana, Sarjoo Pandey, Darshan Singh Canadian and Avtaar Singh Malhotra were emerging between the masses and the working class in particular.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This was the first leadership of communists that was very close to the masses and people consider them champions of the cause of the workers and the poor.

In 1952, CPI became the first leading opposition party in the first Lok Sabha, while the Indian National Congress was in power.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In the 1952 Travancore-Cochin Legislative Assembly election, the Communist Party was banned, so it couldn't take part in the election process.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the general elections in 1957, the CPI emerged as the largest opposition party. In 1957, the CPI won the state elections in Kerala. This was the first time that an opposition party won control over an Indian state. E. M. S. Namboodiripad became Chief Minister. At the 1957 international meeting of Communist parties in Moscow, the Chinese Communist Party directed criticism at the CPI for having formed a ministry in Kerala.<ref>Basu, Pradip. Towards Naxalbari (1953–1967) – An Account of Inner-Party Ideological Struggle. Calcutta: Progressive Publishers, 2000. p. 32.</ref>

The CPI was involved in the Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Along with its units in Bombay, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, the party decided to begin armed operations in the area in July 1954. Both Dadra and Nagar Haveli were liberated by the beginning of August. Communist leaders like Narayan Palekar, Parulekar, Vaz, Rodriguez, Cunha, and others emerged as the Communist leaders of the movement. Thereafter, the struggle to liberate Daman and Diu was begun by the Communist Party in Gujarat and other forces.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The countrywide Goa Satyagraha movement of 1955–1956 is a significant event in the history of the Indian freedom struggle, in which the communists played a major role. The CPI sent groups of satyahrahis from mid-1955 onward to the borders of and into Goa. Many were killed, and many more were arrested and sent to jails inside Goa and inhumanely treated. Many others were even sent to jails in Portugal and brutally tortured. The satyagraha movement was led and conducted by a joint committee known as Goa Vimochan Sahayak Samiti. Dange, Senapati Bapat, S. G. Sardesai, Nana Patil and several others were among the leaders of the committee. Satyagraha began on 10 May 1955, and soon became a countrywide movement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Ideological differences led to the split in the party in 1964 when two different party conferences were held, one of CPI and one of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The impacts of the Sino-Soviet split contributed to this party split.<ref name=":2323">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

During the period between 1970 and 1977, the CPI was allied with the Congress party. In Kerala, they formed a government together with Congress as part of a coalition known as the United Front, with the CPI-leader C. Achutha Menon as Chief Minister. This government continued governing throughout the emergency period and was responsible for the many acts of repression throughout the period carried out against political opponents in the guise of fighting naxals, manifesting most infamously in the Rajan case. The United Front government also used this opportunity to pursue class struggle by punishing those from the managerial classes, money lenders, bosses with anti-labour stances, ration shopkeepers and truckers engaged in black marketing, under stringent provisions of MISA and DIR.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 1980s, the CPI opposed the Khalistan movement at Punjab.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1986, the CPI's leader in Punjab and MLA in the Punjabi legislature Darshan Singh Canadian was assassinated by Sikh extremists. Altogether about 200 communist leaders out of which most were Sikhs were killed by Sikh extremists in Punjab.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Present situation

Left parties' regional control Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend
Mural in Thiruvananthapuram

The CPI was recognised by the Election Commission of India as a national party. Until 2022, CPI happened to be the only national political party from India to have contested all the general elections using the same electoral symbol. Owing to a massive defeat in 2019 Indian general election where the party saw its tally reduced to two MPs, the Election Commission of India sent a letter to CPI asking for reasons why its national party status should not be revoked.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Due to repeated poor performances in elections, the Election Commission of India withdrew its national party status on 10 April 2023.<ref name=":0" />

On the national level, they supported the Indian National Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government along with other parliamentary Left parties, but without taking part in it. Upon attaining power in May 2004, the United Progressive Alliance formulated a programme of action known as the Common Minimum Programme.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Left bases its support to the UPA on strict adherence to it. Provisions of the CMP mentioned to discontinue disinvestment, massive social sector outlays and an independent foreign policy.

On 8 July 2008, the General Secretary of the CPI(M), Prakash Karat, announced that the Left was withdrawing its support over the decision by the government to go ahead with the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. The Left parties combination had been a staunch advocate of not proceeding with this deal citing national interests.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In West Bengal, the CPI participates in the Left Front. It also participated in the state government in Manipur. In Kerala, the party is part of Left Democratic Front. In Tripura the party is a partner of the Left Front, which governed the state until 2018. In Tamil Nadu it is part of the Secular Progressive Alliance and in Bihar it is the part of Mahagathbandhan. It is involved in the Left Democratic Front in Maharashtra. In February 2022, CPI and Congress formed an alliance in Manipur named Manipur Progressive Secular Alliance.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The current general secretary of CPI is D. Raja.

Presence in states

As of 2020, the CPI is a part of the state government in Kerala. Pinarayi Vijayan is Chief Minister of Kerala.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> CPI have four Cabinet Ministers in Kerala. In Tamil Nadu, it is part of the Secular Progressive Alliance coalition led by M. K. Stalin. The Left Front governed West Bengal for 34 years (1977–2011) and Tripura for 25 years (1993–2018)

State governments

S.No State/ Govt Since Chief Minister Alliance Coalition Seats in Assembly Last election
Portrait Name Party Seats Since
1 Kerala 26 May 2016 Pinarayi Vijayan bgcolor="Template:Party color" | CPI(M) 62 26 May 2016 Left Democratic Front [[Kerala Legislative Assembly|Template:Composition bar]] 6 April 2021
Seats won by CPI in state legislative councils
State legislative assembly Last election Contested
seats 		Seats won Alliance Result Template:Ref.
Bihar Legislative Council 2020 1 Template:Composition bar Mahagathbandhan Template:Yes2 <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Seats won by CPI in state legislative assemblies
State legislative assembly Last election Contested
seats 		Seats won Alliance Result Template:Ref.
Kerala Legislative Assembly 2021 23 Template:Composition bar style="background-color: Template:Party color;" | Left Democratic Front Template:Yes2 <ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly 2021 6 Template:Composition bar Secular Progressive Alliance Template:Yes2 <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Telangana Legislative Assembly 2023 1 Template:Composition bar style="background-color: Template:Party color;" | INC+ Template:Yes2 <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

List of members of parliament

List of Rajya Sabha (Upper House) members

Template:Main

No. Name State Date of appointment Date of retirement
1 P. P. Suneer Kerala Template:Dts Template:Dts
2 P. Sandosh Kumar Kerala Template:Dts Template:Dts

List of Lok Sabha (Lower House) members

Template:Main

No. Name Constituency State
1 K. Subbarayan Tiruppur Tamil Nadu
2 Selvaraj V Nagapattinam Tamil Nadu

Leadership

The 24th Party Congress of the Communist Party of India was held from 2025 September 21 to 25 in Chandigarh

General Secretary

National Secretariat

Style="background-color:Template:Party color; color:white" | Name Style="background-color:Template:Party color; color:white" | Photo
D. Raja
Amarjeet Kaur
Bhalchandra Kango
Rama Krushna Panda
Annie Raja
Girish Chandra Sharma
K. Prakash Babu
P. Santhosh Kumar
Palla Venkata Reddy
Sanjay Kumar

K. Ramakrishna will be an invitee to the national secretariat. Pallab Sengupta, President of the World Peace Council and in charge of the CPI International Department for several years, will be a permanent invitee to all higher bodies of the party.

State Secretaries

Style="background-color:Template:Party color; color:white" | State Style="background-color:Template:Party color; color:white"| State Secretary
Andaman and Nicobar Islands TBD
Andhra Pradesh Gujjula Eshwarayya
Assam Kanak Gogoi
Bihar Ram Naresh Pandey
Delhi Dinesh Varshney
Chhattisgarh K. Saji
Goa Christopher Fonseca
Gujarat Ramsagar Singh Parihar
Haryana Dariyav Singh Kashyap
Himachal Pradesh Bhag Singh Chaudhary
Jammu and Kashmir G. M. Mizrab
Jharkhand Mahendra Pathak
Karnataka Saathi Sundaresh
Kerala Binoy Viswam
Madhya Pradesh Shailendra Shaili
Maharashtra Subhash Lande
Manipur Naba Chandra
Meghalaya Samudra Gupta<ref>https://highlandpost.com/veteran-communist-leader-passes-away</ref>
Nagaland M. M. Thromwa Konyak<ref>https://www.thesangaiexpress.com/Encyc/2022/8/26/IMPHAL-Aug-25The-Nagaland-State-Committee-Communist-Party-of-India-was-formed-yesterday-at-an-ev.html</ref>
Odisha Prasanta Mishra
Punjab Bant Singh Brar
Puducherry A. M. Saleem
Rajasthan Narendra Acharya
Tamil Nadu M. Veerapandian<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Telangana Kunamneni Sambasiva Rao
Tripura Milan Baidya
Uttarakhand Jagdish Kuliyal
Uttar Pradesh Arvind Raj Swarup
West Bengal Swapan Banerjee

List of general secretaries and chairmen

Article XXXII of the party constitution says:

"The tenure of the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary, if any, and State Secretaries is limited to two consecutive terms—a term being of not less than two years. In exceptional cases, the unit concerned may decide by three-fourth majority through secret ballot to allow two more terms. In case such a motion is adopted that comrade also can contest in the election along with other candidates. As regards the tenure of the office-bearers at district and lower levels, the state councils will frame rules where necessary."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

General secretaries and chairmen<ref name="20th Party Congress, Hyderabad">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Number Photo Name Tenure
1st Sachchidanand Vishnu Ghate 1925–1933
2nd Gangadhar Adhikari 1933–1935
3rd Puran Chand Joshi 1936–1948
4th B. T. Ranadive 1948–1950
5th Chandra Rajeswara Rao 1950–1951
6th Ajoy Ghosh 1951–1962
Chairman Shripad Amrit Dange 1962–1981
7th E. M. S. Namboodiripad 1962–1964
(-) Chandra Rajeswara Rao 1964–1990
8th Indrajit Gupta 1990–1996
9th Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan 1996–2012
10th Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy 2012–2019
11th D. Raja Since 2019Template:Break(incumbent)

Party congress

Party congresses<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="20th Party Congress, Hyderabad"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Party congress Year Place
Founding conference 1925 December 25–28 Cawnpore (Kanpur)
1st 1943 May 23 – June 1 Bombay
2nd 1948 February 28 – March 6 Calcutta (Kolkata)
3rd 1953 December 27 – 1954 January 4 Madurai
4th 1956 April 19–29 Palghat
5th 1958 April 6–13 Amritsar
6th 1961 April 7–16 Vijayawada
7th 1964 December 13–23 Bombay
8th 1968 February 7–15 Patna
9th 1971 October 3–10 Cochin (Kochi)
10th 1975 January 27 – February 2 Vijayawada
11th 1978 March 31 – April 7 Bathinda
12th 1982 March 22–28 Varanasi
13th 1986 March 2–17 Patna
14th 1989 March 6–12 Calcutta
15th 1992 April 10–16 Hyderabad
16th 1995 October 7–11 Delhi
17th 1998 September 14–19 Chennai
18th 2002 March 26–31 Thiruvananthapuram
19th 2005 March 29 – April 3 Chandigarh
20th 2008 March 23–27 Hyderabad
21st 2012 March 27–31 Patna
22nd 2015 March 25–29 Puducherry
23rd 2018 April 25–29 Kollam
24th 2022 October 14–18 Vijayawada
25th 2025 September 21–25 Chandigarh

Principal mass organisations

In Tripura, the Ganamukti Parishad is a mass organisation amongst the state's Tripuri people.

List of chief ministers

Chief ministers<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Photo Name Tenure State
E. M. S. Namboodiripad 1957Template:Endash1959 Kerala
C. Achutha Menon 1969Template:Endash1970; 1970Template:Endash1977
P. K. Vasudevan Nair 1978Template:Endash1979

Notable leaders

General election results

Template:Main Electoral history of the Communist Party of India * : 12 seats in Assam and 1 in Meghalaya did not vote.

State Candidates 2019 Elected 2019 Candidates 2014 Elected 2014 Candidates 2009 Elected 2009 Total seats
Andhra Pradesh 2 0 1 0 2 0 25 (2014) / 42 (2009)
Arunachal Pradesh 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Assam 2 0 1 0 3 0 14
Bihar 2 0 2 0 7 0 40
Chhattisgarh 1 0 2 0 1 0 11
Goa 0 0 2 0 2 0 2
Gujarat 1 0 1 0 1 0 26
Haryana 1 0 2 0 1 0 10
Himachal Pradesh 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
Jammu and Kashmir 0 0 0 0 1 0 6
Jharkhand 3 0 3 0 3 0 14
Karnataka 1 0 3 0 1 0 28
Kerala 4 0 4 1 4 0 20
Madhya Pradesh 4 0 5 0 3 0 29
Maharashtra 2 0 4 0 3 0 48
Manipur 1 0 1 0 1 0 2
Meghalaya 0 0 1 0 1 0 2
Mizoram 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Nagaland 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Odisha 1 0 4 0 1 1 21
Punjab 2 0 5 0 2 0 13
Rajasthan 3 0 3 0 2 0 25
Sikkim 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Tamil Nadu 2 2 8 0 3 1 39
Tripura 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Telangana 2 0 17
Uttar Pradesh 12 0 8 0 9 0 80
Uttarakhand 0 0 1 0 1 0 5
West Bengal 3 0 3 0 3 2 42
Union Territories:
Andaman and Nicobar Islands 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Chandigarh 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Dadra and Nagar Haveli 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Daman and Diu 0 0 0 0 0 0 1
Delhi 0 0 1 0 1 0 7
Lakshadweep 1<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 0 1 0 0 0 1
Puducherry 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Total 50 2 67 1 56 4 543

<ref name="auto3">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="auto1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

Template:Portal

Footnotes

Template:Reflist

Further reading

Template:Refbegin

  • Chakrabarty, Bidyut. Communism in India: Events, Processes and Ideologies (Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • Devika, J. "Egalitarian developmentalism, communist mobilization, and the question of caste in Kerala State, India." Journal of Asian Studies (2010): 799–820. online
  • D'mello, Vineet Kaitan. "The United Socialist Front: The Congress Socialist Party and the Communist Party of India." Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Vol. 73. (2012) online Template:Webarchive.
  • Haithcox, John Patrick. Communism and Nationalism in India (Princeton UP, 2015).
  • Kautsky, John H. Moscow and the Communist Party of India: A Study in the Postwar Evolution of International Communist Strategy. (MIT Press, 1956).
  • Kohli, Atul. "Communist Reformers in West Bengal: Origins, Features, and Relations with New Delhi." in State Politics in Contemporary India (Routledge, 2019) pp. 81–102.
  • Lockwood, David. The communist party of India and the Indian emergency (SAGE Publications India, 2016).
  • Lovell, Julia. Maoism: A Global History (2019)
  • Masani, M.R. The Communist Party of India: A Short History. (Macmillan, 1954). online
  • Overstreet, Gene D., and Marshall Windmiller. Communism in India (U of California Press, 2020)
  • Paul, Santosh, ed. The Maoist Movement in India: perspectives and counterperspectives (Taylor & Francis, 2020).
  • Pons, Silvio and Robert Service, eds. A Dictionary of 20th-Century Communism (Princeton UP, 2010) pp 180–182.
  • Singer, Wendy. "Peasants and the Peoples of the East: Indians and the Rhetoric of the Comintern," in Tim Rees and Andrew Thorpe, International Communism and the Communist International, 1919–43. (Manchester University Press, 1998).
  • Steur, Luisa. "Adivasis, Communists, and the rise of indigenism in Kerala." Dialectical Anthropology 35.1 (2011): 59–76. online
  • N. E. Balaram, A Short History of the Communist Party of India. Kozikkode, Cannanore, India: Prabhath Book House, 1967.
  • Samaren Roy, The Twice-Born Heretic: M.N. Roy and the Comintern. Calcutta: Firma KLM Private, 1986.

Primary sources

  • G. Adhikari (ed.), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India: Volume One, 1917–1922. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1971.
  • G. Adhikari (ed.), Documents of the History of the Communist Party of India: Volume Two, 1923–1925. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1974.
  • V. B. Karnick (ed.), Indian Communist Party Documents, 1930–1956. Bombay: Democratic Research Service/Institute of Public Relations, 1957.
  • Rao, M. B., Ed. Documents Of The History Of The Communist Party Of India(1948–1950), Vol. 7 (1960) online

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