People's Democracy

         CITU Gen-Sec For Rajya Sabha

THE CPI(M) has nominated Chittabrata Majumdar, the all-India general secretary of the CITU to contest for the Rajya Sabha seat that fell vacant when Pranab Mukherjee of Congress was elected a member of the Lok Sabha in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

In a meeting held earlier, the Bengal Left Front decided that the CPI(M) would contest the vacant Rajya Sabha seat. Meeting later, the state secretariat of the CPI(M) resolved that Majumdar would contest from the seat.

Speaking to the media, state secretary of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas said that Majumdar, an all-India working class leader, would be able to speak out for the interests of the working class in the parliament at a time when the toiling masses were the subject of fresh assaults.

Majumdar himself said that he would continue to work for the interests of the working class in and outside of the parliament. Majumdar did not think that his nomination would send a wrong signal to the corporate business houses, indigenous and foreign, since TU’s "are in existence in overseas countries as well."

Associated with the working class movement from 1950’s, Majumdar is a graduate and holds a diploma in textile technology. He had been a schoolteacher. He was put behind bars for sixteen months under the Defence of India Act in 1965. He became a Party whole timer after coming out of incarceration. A member of the CITU general council at the CITU’s formation in 1970, he remained the general secretary of the Bengal unit of the CITU between 1990 and 2003.

Earlier, between 1977 and 1982 he was the cottage and small scales minister in the Bengal Left front government. He was elected the all-India general secretary of the organisation at the Chennai conference of the CITU earlier this year. A member of the CPI(M) central committee, Majumdar is a member of the state secretariat of the CPI(M).