Prakash Karat re-elected as CPI-M general secretary

Communist Party of India - Marxist veteran Prakash Karat was on Monday re-elected general secretary for the third consecutive term at the party's 20th Congress, which concluded in Kozhikode, Kerala.

Karat, 64, was elected as general secretary in 2005 at the New Delhi Congress and reelected at Coimbatore for the second term.

Attended by over 700 delegates from all states, the meet, which had deliberated on the poll debacle the CPI-M suffered in West Bengal and Kerala, also elected a 15-member politburo.

While Kerala veteran and former chief minister V S Achuthanandan failed to get reinstated in the politburo, former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been retained.

The new Politburo was announced by Karat at a press meet on the conclusion of the six-day meet.

New faces in the Politburo include CITU national president A K Padmanabhan, West Bengal opposition leader Suryakanta Mishra and former Kerala education minister M A Baby.

The 20th party Congress also adopted the organisational and ideological resolutions, besides extensively deliberating on the national and international political situation.