As the crisis of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and CPI deepens in West Bengal, they are fast losing their grip over poll-bound Bihar.
Three top leaders of the two biggest constituents of the Left bloc joined Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Subodh Roy a CPI(M) central committee member and former Lok Sabha MP and former CPI MLA Lal Babu Sahani pledged allegiance to the ruling Janata Dal-United.
The JD-U leadership is also expecting a sitting CPI MLA, Ram Vinod Paswan, to join the bandwagon. Paswan, the MLA from Bakhri, has been denied a ticket by the party for the assembly elections scheduled in October this year.
While Roy was the CPI-M candidate from the Bhagalpur constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, he was "not taking interest" in party affairs over the past few months. "He didn't attend the extended central committee meeting in Vijayawada. He was involved in anti-party activities. We came to know yesterday that he will join the JD-U because he has been assured of a ticket in Bhagalpur," Hannan Mollah, the central committee member in-charge of Bihar told Business Standard.
The CPI-M politburo quickly swung into action and expelled Roy today. "Invoking Article XIX, Clause 13 of the party constitution, (the party) has summarily expelled central committee member, Subodh Roy, from the primary membership for "grave anti-party activities" with immediate effect," said the party statement.
