Kameshwar Pandit

Last updated

Kameshwar Pandit was an Indian politician, trade unionist and journalist. Pandit founded the Himachal Pradesh branch of the Communist Party of India in 1953. [1] [2] [3]

Pandit contested in the June 3, 1959 Mahasu Lok Sabha seat by-election, standing as an independent politician. [4] [5] Pandit won 6,712 (8.67%) of the votes. [4]

Pandit remained in the CPI after the 1964 split in the party and stayed on as the Himachal Pradesh State Council Secretary of CPI until his death. [1] [2] [3] He was the leader of mass organizations like the All India Trade Union Congress and the All India Kisan Sabha. [2] Pandit served as the editor of the weekly Himachal Janata for many years. [2] [6] He also founded the weekly Himachal Darpan and Pahari. [3] [7] He wrote several books and worked on a number of periodical publications. [3] He was a member of the CPI National Council. [8]

He was offered the position as state governor by Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda but turned down the offer. [3]

Pandit died in Shimla on June 29, 2001. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communist Party of India (Marxist)</span> Political party in India

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)) is a communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party in India in terms of membership and electoral seats, and one of the national parties of India. The party was founded through a splitting from the Communist Party of India in 1964 and it quickly became the dominant fraction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communist Party of India</span> Political party in India

The Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest communist party in India. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur on 26 December 1925. Currently, it has two members in Lok Sabha and two members in Rajya Sabha. In addition, it has 22 MLAs across four states and one MLC in Bihar. It has the current ECI status of a state party in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Manipur.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shripad Amrit Dange</span> Indian Politician

Shripad Amrit Dange was an Indian politician who was a founding member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a stalwart of Indian trade union movement. During the 20th century, Dange was arrested by the authorities for communist and trade union activities and was jailed for an overall period of 13 years.

Communism in India has existed as a social or political ideology as well as a political movement since at least as early as the 1920s. In its early years, communist ideology was harshly suppressed through legal prohibitions and criminal prosecutions. Eventually, communist parties became ensconced in national party politics, sprouting several political offshoots.

K. Ramani was an Indian politician. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1969, four times to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and was the Tamil Nadu State Committee president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

K. P. Prabhakaran was a communist politician and trade unionist from Kerala, India. He was a senior leader of the Communist Party of India, served as Health Minister of Kerala for one period. At the time of his death, he was the chairman of the State Control Commission of CPI.

Chaturanan Mishra was an Indian politician and trade unionist. Mishra, who was born in Nahar, Madhubani District, was a key leader of the Communist Party of India in Bihar, and served as the Agriculture Minister of India in the United Front government.

Baddam Yella Reddy was an Indian communist politician from Telangana. He was one of the prominent leaders in the Telangana armed struggle against the Nizam regime.

Balkrishna Sharma was an Indian politician. He was a leader of the Communist Party of India and the Kisan Sabha. Sharma was active in organising peasants movement in northern Madhya Pradesh for various decades. Together with other CPI leaders such as Khan Shakir Ali Khan he organised occupations of estates of ex-princes and other large landowners. As of 1973 he was a member of the Central Kisan Committee, the national leadership of the All India Kisan Sabha.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Left Front (West Bengal)</span> Indian political party

The Left Front is an alliance of left-wing political parties in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was formed in January 1977, the founding parties being the Communist Party of India (Marxist), All India Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Marxist Forward Bloc, the Revolutionary Communist Party of India and the Biplobi Bangla Congress. Other parties joined in later years, most notably the Communist Party of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1982 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election</span> Assembly election in West Bengal

Legislative Assembly elections were held in the Indian state of West Bengal in 1982. The Left Front, which had won the 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, emerged victoriously. The Indian National Congress emerged as the main opposition party in the state, as the Janata Party was disintegrating.

Sudhindranath Kumar was an Indian politician, belonging to the Revolutionary Communist Party of India. He served as general secretary of the party 1960–1984, represented Howrah Central constituency in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and served as Food Minister of the state in 1969 and 1977–1982.

Krishnapada Ghosh (1914–1987) was an Indian politician and trade unionist. He served as West Bengal Minister of Labour 1969–1970 and 1977–1985. He was a Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He was also a member of the Working Committee of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions.

Rakesh Singha is an Indian communist politician and a former member of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly representing the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1979 Nagapattinam by-election</span>

On 17 June 1979 a by-election was held in for the Nagapattinam seat in the Lok Sabha. The by-election was called after the murder of the incumbent Communist Party of India parliamentarian S.G. Murugaiyan, one of three prominent communist leaders killed in the state of Tamil Nadu in 1979. The Nagapattinam constituency was reserved for Scheduled Castes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krishna Pal Singh</span> Indian politician (b. 1922, d. 1999)

Krishnapal Singh was an Indian activist, politician and a former Governor of Gujarat from Shahdol in Baghelkhand. His career began in the 1940s and ended in the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1964 split in the Communist Party of India</span> Conflict between Leftists, Centrists and Rightists

In 1964, a major split occurred in the Communist Party of India. The split was the culmination of decades of tensions and factional infighting. When India became independent in 1947, differences arose of how to adapt to the new situation. As relations between the Nehru government and the Soviet Union improved, a faction that sought cooperation with the dominant Indian National Congress emerged within CPI. This tendency was led by S.A. Dange, whose role in the party hierarchy became increasingly controversial. When the Sino-Indian War broke out in 1962 Dange's opponents within CPI were jailed, but when they were released they sought to challenge his leadership. In 1964 the party was finally divided into two, with the left faction forming the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The split had a lot of regional variations. It also impacted other organizations, such as trade union and peasant movements. The split has been studied extensively by scholars, who have sought to analyze the various domestic and international factors involved.

On 3 June 1959 a by-election was held for one of the Mahasu seats in the Lok Sabha. In the 1957 Indian general election Yashwant Singh Parmar and Nek Ram of the Indian National Congress had been declared the winners of the two Mahasu constituency seats, but subsequently the Election Tribunal had declared the election of Parmer invalid due to 'corrupt practices'.

Tara Chand was an Indian politician. He was elected to the Himachal Pradesh Territorial Council in 1962, from the Jogindernagar constituency. He was the sole Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate elected to the council. When CPI split in 1964 Tarachand sided with the Communist Party of India (Marxist), become a leading figure of CPI(M) in Himachal Pradesh. He was elected secretary of the CPI(M) Himachal Pradesh State Committee in 1978. He served as president of the Himachal Pradesh Kisan Sabha.

References

  1. 1 2 Ranbir Sharma (1977). Party Politics in a Himalayan State. National. p. 78.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 The Tribune. HP CPI Secy Pandit dead
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 The Tribune. CPI pays tributes to Kameshwar Pandit
  4. 1 2 Election Commission of India. Bye-election results 1952-95
  5. Asian Recorder. K. K. Thomas at Recorder Press. 1959. p. 2711.
  6. Press in India. Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. 1977. p. 125.
  7. Press in India. Office of the Registrar of Newspapers. 1960. p. 12.
  8. Communist Party of India. Congress (1982). Documents of the Twelfth Congress of the Communist Party of India, Adhikari Nagar, Varanasi, 22 to 28 March 1982. J. Sen for the Communist Party of India. p. 390.