New state committee of CPI(M)’s student wing in Bengal constituted

Kolkata, Jan 24 (IANS) The new committee of the West Bengal unit of Students Federation of India (SFI), the students’ wing of CPI(M), was constituted on the last day of the 38th state conference of SFI on Wednesday.

While Pranay Kajji from SFI’s has taken over as the new state president of SFI, Debanjan De has taken over as the new state secretary of the mass organization. The new editor of the SFI’s theoretical organ, Chhatra Sangram (Students’ Struggle) is Souvik Das Bakshi.

SFI insiders said that the selection of Pranay Kajji as the state president of the outfit is significant in the way that this is for the first time a students’ leader from North Bengal has been handed over the baton for that chair.

This year the students’ wing of SFI is gone for some unconventional ways in selecting new faces for leadership positions. Recently, for the first time in history two women faces were selected as the district president and district secretary of SFI in Kolkata, when Barnana Mukhopadhya was appointed as the district president and Didhiti Roy as the district secretary.

Such developments, according to the political observers, are extremely significant considering that the top CPI(M) leadership has been stressing on the induction of young and female faces in all slots of party leadership.

There is a strong rumour in the circles of Left politics in the state that outgoing state president of SFI in West Bengal Srijon Bhattacharya and the outgoing state secretary Pratikur Rahman will be fielded as CPI(M) candidates in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls scheduled this year.

The party veteran and Left Front chairman in West Bengal, Biman Bose, too had recently on several occasions stressed on encouraging the fresh blood at different levels of leadership to add pace to the party programmes.

Political observers feel that the development is significant in the backdrop of the infighting in ruling Trinamool Congress on the issue of 'old guards' versus 'new faces'. Differences in the party started surfacing, though in a timid manner, since last year when the party’s general secretary and Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee floated the concept of fixing the upper age limit at all levels of leadership.