The newly-elected State secretary of CPI K. Sambasiva Rao has said that the decline in recruitment of cadre was a big challenge that the party was facing, as students and youth who constituted its target groups, were drawn to corporate education.
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The problem indirectly resulted in leadership crisis in the party. “How to draw the attention of people towards the party to aid its cadre and leadership base is the concern of the party”, Mr. Rao told The Hindu in an interview.
Mr. Rao was elected State secretary of CPI at its third State conference that concluded on Wednesday. The election went into early hours of Thursday as the council members could not arrive at a consensus on the successor to former secretary Chada Venkat Reddy, necessitating voting which Mr. Rao won by 15 votes. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao called up Mr. Rao to congratulate him.
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He said in these days of politics linked to electoral results under the influence of money power, the CPI was in a position to withstand the practices. Therefore, his priority was to reconnect with the traditional support base which still existed in every village. The party will identify issues and wage militant struggles, in spite of police repression.
Earlier, Mr. Rao told a media conference that the party will commemorate the call for armed struggle given by its yesteryear leaders — Maqdoom Mohiuddin, Baddam Yella Reddy and Ravi Narayan Reddy — on September 11, which culminated in the accession of erstwhile Hyderabad State with the Indian Union on September 17, 1948.
It will be held at Ravi Narayan Reddy hall on Sunday but the main programme to celebrate the success of the struggle will take place at Exhibition Grounds on September 17.
The CPI secretary criticised the confusion raked up by the BJP and the ruling TRS government over the significance of September 17 by giving names like ‘Liberation Day’ and ‘Integration Day’ respectively. The BJP twisted the struggles then as something against the autocratic rule of Nizam while the TRS needlessly coined it Integration Day which did not have any meaning.
The right meaning emerged by looking at it from the struggles against feudal lords represented by zamindars and jagirdars who worked under the Nizam. Hence, the CPI called it merger with Hyderabad. If liberation was true, Mr. Rao asked why Qasim Razvi who led the Razakars of Nizam was allowed to flee to Pakistan. He should have been put in jail.