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At the four-day convention, the former CPM leaders are expected to hit out at the “hardline Communists” for not adhering to the former chief minister’s principles.
The PDS was formed by Saifuddin Choudhury and Samir Putotunda, the two former senior CPM leaders, in 2001 following a rift with the party’s “hardline leaders” and it reportedly had the backing of Jyoti Basu. While Choudhury is now the president of the party, Putotunda is the incumbent secretary of the outfit.
In the run-up to the Singur and Nandigram agitation against the land acquisition, the PDS allied with Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. Choudhury, who was a CPM central committee member and MP before he left the party, also had close association with another CPM leader Subhas Chakraborty, who died last year. “We will also offer condolences on the death of Subhas Chakraborty at our party conference,” said Putotunda.
According to sources, the party is maintaining close contacts with those political leaders who have either been expelled or have left the CPM. “We are in touch with former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee. We feel that those who raise their voice against the hardliners in the CPM will not be allowed to continue,” said a PDS leader.
At the convention, the party leaders will pass a resolution on Basu in which the present generation of politicians will be urged to learn from the veteran leader’s life.
The draft resolution reads: “His (Basu’s) life will show the path to all the democratic movement of the country and will encourage all political leaders and activists. The Communist party under the leadership of Jyoti Basu had a separate identity from the well-known Communist fashion.”
“We think Jyoti Basu was not only a leader of CPM but he had also shown how democratic institutions could be used for the uplift of poor people,” said Putotunda.
The body may not be dissected
The famous 95-year-old body that has provided the latest spurt to body donation is now just a number at SSKM. “In medical research, ethically, we cannot divulge whose body is being dissected or whose skeleton is being used in teaching. The serial number of Jyoti Basu’s body will remain confidential forever,” said the hospital’s Head of the Anatomy Department, Dr Asish Kumar Dutta. It was reliably learnt, meanwhile, that Basu’s body will not be dissected. Efforts are on to preserve the organs, if possible. The skeleton will be retained in the hospital’s anatomy museum as an anonymous specimen. A body normally cannot be dissected after 48 hours of death, doctors at SSKM said. Basu passed away before noon on Sunday and the body reached the hospital only on Tuesday evening. “For dissecting a body, proper embalming is most important. It must be done as soon after death as possible, but definitely within 24 hours,” Dr Dutta said.
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