People's Democracy

Biman Basu Elected State Secretary

IN a state committee meeting with one agendum and held in the late morning of March 31, the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) unanimously elected Biman Basu, Polit Bureau member of the Party to succeed the late Comrade Anil Biswas as the secretary.  Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M) was present at the state committee meeting.

Comrade Anil Biswas had passed away on March 26 following a massive brain haemorrhage. 

Biman Basu will continue to be the chairman of the Bengal Left Front. 

Addressing a brief media conference at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan later, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) and Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said that the stress as before would be on collective functioning in the task to advance further the organisation and to carry forth the ongoing election campaign. 

Also in attendance at the media briefing were newly elected state secretary Biman Basu and central committee member of the CPI(M) Nirupam Sen.

Biman Basu, born in Kolkata on July 1, 1940, joined political and social activities from the days of school. He participated in election campaign during an assembly bye-election in 1954, while still in school.  Though recommended for Party membership in 1957, it was granted only in 1958 as the minimum age requirement was 18 years. Biman Basu joined in the movement against Bengal-Bihar merger in 1956 and food movement in 1959 and was imprisoned in 1958. A graduate, he could not complete LLB examination due to police repression.   He became secretary of Bengal Provincial Students’ Federation, Kolkata district and vice-president of BPSF in 1964. He worked as assistant secretary of Indo-Vietnam Solidarity Committee in mid-sixties. 

Biman Basu became the founder all India general secretary of Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in 1970. He was elected as member of the state committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1971 and to the secretariat in 1978.  He became a permanent invitee in central committee, CPI(M) in 1983 and became member, central committee in 1985.  Biman Basu was elected as member, Polit Bureau CPI(M) in 1998.  He is chairman, West Bengal Left Front, since 2001. Biman Basu is a bachelor. He visited Soviet Union, Bulgaria, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Japan & Bangladesh as delegate to conferences and also undertook private visit to UK, USA and other countries. 

(B P)