Amitava Nandi

Calcutta, Feb. 21: The CPM leadership has taken “serious exception’’ to former party MP Amitava Nandi’s demand made in public that the leadership explain his exclusion from the state committee and is likely to “censure’’ him for his remarks, sources said.

“We are a disciplined party. Our decision is that people involved in factionalism and dissidence should not be entertained… as these things had cost our party dear in the Assembly elections. That’s why some members were dropped from the state committee. If Nandi wants to make himself a martyr by publicly seeking an explanation from the leadership, he has gone awfully wrong,’’ said a CPM state secretariat member.

“Our party has taken serious exception. He is likely to be censured and issued a word of caution by the party leadership not to make such comments in public,’’ the leader added.

After the announcement of the newly elected CPM state committee on the concluding day of the party state conference, Nandi had demanded that the leadership “clearly’’ tell him the reasons that prompted them to drop him from the panel, adding that the move was aimed at “maligning’’ him.

“The leadership has to tell me clearly why I was dropped from the state committee. I am still a tireless party worker. I don’t think I am old and infirm and that I have to be shown the door,” the 68-year- old leader of North 24-Parganas had told The Telegraph that evening.

Asked what he would do if the party refused to give any reasons for his ouster, Nandi had then added: “I will go to the people and tell them what happened to me. I have the right to know why such a step was taken against me.’’

As an exercise in “damage control’’, Nandi today held a meeting with CPM’s North 24-Parganas district secretary Gautam Deb and explained that he didn’t want to defy the party’s decision by making such an outburst, a source said.

The former Dum Dum MP buckled under party pressure when asked whether he was insistent on seeking an explanation from the leadership.

“I had earlier talked about asking for an explanation. But since I am with the party, I will have to maintain discipline. I cannot keep saying the same thing again and again. If needed, I will comment after talking to my district secretary,’’ Nandi told The Telegraph today.

After the last Assembly polls, the CPM had censured former land reforms minister and current MLA Abdur Rezzak Mollah for criticising the party and some of its leaders. Mollah, however, continues to be part of the state committee because of his organisational base and the “fact’’ that he is a popular minority face of the party, a source said.

The CPM had dropped 13 members from the state committee, including Nandi, to begin the process of rectification “right from the top’’.

After the last Assembly elections, the party had identified organisational shortcomings as one of the factors that had contributed to the poll debacle.

Since then, the party had been insisting on a course correction with the central leadership preparing a rectification document and sending it down the line to “flush out’’ those involved in undesirable activities.