Prakash Karat to be coordinator of CPI(M)'s Politburo, Central Committee as interim measure
New Delhi, Sep 29: Senior CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat will be the coordinator of the party's Politburo and Central Committee as an interim arrangement until the 24th party Congress to be held in April next year, the Left party said on Sunday.
The decision comes in the wake of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury's death on September 12 at the age of 72.
"The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), now in session in New Delhi, has decided that Comrade Prakash Karat will be the coordinator of the Polit Bureau and the Central Committee, as an interim arrangement until the 24th party Congress to be held in April 2025 at Madurai," the CPI(M) said in a statement.
"This decision was taken due to the sad and sudden demise of the sitting general secretary of the CPI(M), Comrade Sitaram Yechury," it added.
Karat, one of the seniormost leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was its general secretary from 2005 to 2015.
Karat was born on February 7, 1948 in Letpadan in present-day Myanmar, where his father, C P Nair, was employed with the Burma Railways and later, at the Burma Oil Pipeline Project.
He studied in the Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School in Chennai and later, went to the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom for a master's degree in politics. He became active in student politics at the university.
He returned to India and joined the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 1970 and also worked as an aide to veteran CPI(M) leader A K Gopalan.
One of the founders of the Students' Federation of India (SFI), Karat was elected as the third president of the JNU Students' Union. He also became the second president of the SFI between 1974 and 1979.
He was the secretary of the Delhi state committee of the CPI(M) from 1982 to 1985, was elected to the Central Committee of the party in 1985 and became a member of its Politburo in 1992.
One of the key faces of the party for decades, Karat was at the helm of the CPI(M) when it decided to withdraw support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre in 2008. The following years saw a decline in the strength of the Left in Parliament.
The CPI(M) had 43 MPs in the Lok Sabha in 2004, which came down to nine in 2014. As a part of the INDIA opposition bloc, the Left party won four seats in the Lok Sabha polls held earlier this year.
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Jharkhand horror: Man kills live-in partner, chops body into 40 pieces
Ranchi (PTI): A 25-year-old man, who works as a butcher, allegedly strangled to death his live-in partner and chopped her body into 40 to 50 pieces in a forested area in Jharkhand’s Khunti district, police said on Wednesday.
The accused, identified as Naresh Bhengra, was arrested.
The matter came to light after around a fortnight after the killing when a stray dog was found with human body parts near Jordag village in Jariagarh police station on November 24.
Bhengra was in a live-in relationship with the deceased, a 24-year-old woman also from Khunti district, in Tamil Nadu for the past couple of years. Sometime back, he returned to Jharkhand, got married to another woman without telling his partner anything and went back to the southern state without his wife to join her.
"The brutal incident occurred on November 8 when they reached Khunti as the accused who had married another woman did not wish to take her home. Instead, he took her to a forest near his house at Jordag village in Jariagarh police station and chopped the body into pieces. The man has been arrested," Khunti Superintendent of Police Aman Kumar told PTI.
Inspector Ashok Singh who investigated the case said the man worked in a butcher shop in Tamil Nadu and was expert in slicing chicken.
“He admitted chopping the body parts of the woman into 40 to 50 pieces before leaving those in the forest for wild animals to feast on. The police recovered several parts on November 24 after a dog in the area was seen with a hand," Singh told PTI.
Singh said that the woman, who was unaware of his marriage, pressured him to return to Khunti. After reaching Ranchi, they boarded a train on November 24 and headed to the man's village.
"Under a plan, the man took her to Khunti in an autorickshaw near his home and asked her to wait. He returned with sharp weapons and strangulated her with her dupatta after raping her. He then cut the body into 40 to 50 pieces and left for his home to live with his wife," Singh said.
The woman, however, had informed her mother that she had boarded a train and would be living with her partner, the police officer said.
Following the recovery of body parts, a bag was also found in the forest with the murdered woman's belongings including her Aadhaar card. The mother of the woman was called at the spot and she identified her daughter's belongings.
"The mother suspected the man behind the crime who after being nabbed by the police admitted to chopping the woman into pieces," the official added.
The incident has sent shockwaves among people in the region, with the Shraddha Walker murder case of 2022 still fresh in their memory.
Walker was killed by her live-in partner who chopped her body into pieces before dumping them in the jungle in South Delhi’s Mehrauli.
