New Delhi, June 23: The CPM today expelled Prasenjit Bose, the convener of its research unit, charging him with “serious violation of party discipline”.
Bose, considered general secretary Prakash Karat’s protege, quit the party yesterday in protest against the politburo decision to back Pranab Mukherjee for President.
In his resignation letter, Bose had expressed “shock and dismay” at the decision that he claimed had disrupted Left unity and was a “clear violation” of the line agreed at the Kozhikode Congress in April.
Bose attributed the politburo decision to “sheer hypocrisy and doublespeak” and described Karat’s statements at Thursday’s media conference as “wholly misleading” and “vacuous arguments” that exposed an “erroneous stand”.
Bose, a doctorate in economics from JNU and a rising star in the CPM till recently, was aware that the party does not accept resignations — its members can only be expelled.
The CPM politburo today said it “rejects the contents of the letter which seeks to malign the political line of the party. The politburo expels Prasenjit Bose from the membership of the CPI(M) under Article VIII(2) of the Party Constitution.”
Article VIII of the party’s constitution relates to resignation from party membership. Article VIII(2) states that “in the case where a party member wishing to resign from the party is liable to be charged with serious violation of party discipline which may warrant his or her expulsion and where such a charge is substantial, the resignation may be given effect to as expulsion from the party”.
Bose’s punishment has been more lenient than that given to Somnath Chatterjee in 2008. Chatterjee was given the harshest possible punishment of summary expulsion.
The party had then said it had expelled Chatterjee “under Article XIX, clause 13 of the party constitution for seriously compromising the position of the party”.
Bose’s phone was switched off today. Sources said his wife Albeena Shakil, a member of the Delhi state unit, might also quit but efforts were on to persuade her not to.
