Polit Bureau meets to discuss Prez, VP polls

New Delhi, June 24: Top leaders of the CPI(M) today held deliberations to take stock of the latest political situation and discuss the party's strategy in the Presidential and Vice-Presidential polls. The 17-member Polit Bureau, the party's highest decision making body, met here this morning at the party's headquarters A K Gopalan Bhawan and discussed the political developments arising out of the nomination of Ms Pratibha Patil as the UPA-Left nominee for the highest constitutional post and Vice-Presidential poll, which is due in August, among other issues.

Barring party patriarch Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, all other members of the Polit Bureau were attending the meeting.

Polit Bureau member and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury told sources that the session would be followed by a meeting of the 85-member Central Committee which will deliberate on the suspension of Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and senior leader Pinarayi Vijayan from the highest decision-making body besides current national and international political developments.

Party sources said the reported offer of the Left for the post of Vice-President will also figure prominently in the Central Committee deliberations and a final decision may be taken over the issue.

The meeting assumes significance as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi had dismissed as speculation that his party had made a bid for the Vice-President's post as the quid pro quo for supporting the UPA's presidential candidate.

Senior CPM leader and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is the frontrunner for the Vice-President's post, they added.

The Left party will also discuss the outcome of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and its impact on the national political scenario, the Dera Sacha Sauda row in Punjab and the Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan over the community's demand for inclusion in the ST list.

The Central Committee will also decide the schedule and venue of the party Congress due to be held next year. The last Congress in New Delhi in April 2005 saw Mr Prakash Karat taking over as General Secretary from Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

UNI