CPI(M) to infuse young blood in party: Yechury

The CPI(M) will pump in maximum effort to rope in young blood in its fold, Sitaram Yechury said at the beginning of the three-day plenum of the party in the city on Saturday.

“As 70 per cent of the country’s population is the youth we have to get in touch with them because without them the party cannot survive,” he said. The matter will be discussed at length in the plenum. Sunday is the open session of the plenum. It may be recalled that Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee had said on Friday that steps should be immediately taken to induct young members in the party but effort has not been made in this regard so far as most of the leaders are old. Except V S Achyudanandan, all the old timers who had set up the party in 1964 are dead. The second generation leaders including Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, Shyamal Chakraborty are septuagenarian and suffering from various ailments.  In view of this, induction of the young people and training them to become future leaders has become essential. The presence of Ritabrata Bhattacharya in the Rajya Sabha is a part of the party’s move to give the young leaders key posts. The party in the past four decades did not give key posts to young leaders. Gautam Deb, Mohammad Selim and Manab Mukherjee were not given key posts in the party and the decision had always been taken by the old guards.