Kolkata: With the Election Commission of India (ECI) deciding to remove the Communist Party of India (CPI) from the list of national parties, Congress remains the only party to retain that status among the 14 political parties that were granted national party status in India for the first time in 1952.
Besides, Congress and CPI, the 12 other political parties that were recognized as national parties in 1952 were — Socialist Party, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, All India Scheduled Caste Federation, Bolshevik Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Marxist Forward Bloc, All India Forward Bloc (Ruikar Group), Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha, Revolutionary Communist Party of India, Krishikar Lok Party and Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party.
While some of these 12 parties have ceased to exist, none had the national party status in the recent past.
Founded in 1925 as the older Communist force in India, CPI attained national party status in the country in 1952. In that year the CPI became the principal opposition party after the general elections by winning 16 seats after the Congress which bagged a total of 364 seats. At that point of time Socialist Party was the third largest party in the Indian Parliament with 12 representatives.
The CPI has gifted India with some of the most prominent Parliamentarians like Hirendranath Mukherjee, Indrajit Gupta, Gita Mukherjee and Gurudas Dasgupta among others.
However, in 1964 CPI disintegrated with the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The first nine politburo members of the newly formed CPI(M) then were P. Sundarayya, B.T. Ranadive, Promode Dasgupta, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, M. Basavapunnaiah, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, P. Ramamurthi, A.K. Gopalan and Jyoti Basu.
P. Sundarayya was the first general secretary of CPI(M). All the nine members of the party’s first politburo are dead now. The CPI(M) has continued to retain the national party status even after the ECI’s fresh list on Monday on this count.
