Former Kerala education minister MA Baby was on April 6 elected as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the party's 24th all-India conference in Madurai.
Meanwhile, Prakash Karat and Brinda Karat have stepped down from the party's politburo. Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Manik Sarkar would be made special invitees to the central committee of the CPI(M). During the conference, the party also announced that it has elected an 85-member central committee.
"The new central committee elected an 18-member politburo with Comrade MA Baby as the General Secretary. 20 per cent of the Central Committee members are women,” the party said in a post on X.
The position of party general secretary fell vacant after Sitaram Yechury’s death in September last year, following which Prakash Karat stepped in as the interim coordinator.
The CPI (M) leader served as a member of the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to 1998, and later became MLA from Kundara constituency for two terms from 2006 to 2016. He also served as the Education Minister of Kerala from 2006-2011.
MA Baby was exposed to politics when he joined the Kerala Students Federation, the predecessor of the Students Federation of India. For his education in political science, he joined SN College in Kollam but could not finish his course. Baby held many positions in SFI and Democratic Youth Federation of India earlier.
Baby has been a member of the politburo, the highest decision-making body of the CPI(M), since 2012. In 2014, he fought the Lok Sabha polls from Kollam against NK Premachandran of Revolutionary Socialist Party, but lost.
(By arrangement with livemint.com)
