Madurai: Leaders over the age of 75 have been excluded from the CPM Politburo. However, an exception has been made for Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Despite being in his 80s, Pinarayi Vijayan will continue to be in the Politburo. Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, Subhashini Ali, Manik Sarkar, Suryakant Mishra and G. Ramakrishnan, all of whom are above 75, will be excluded from the PB

.It is learnt that Viju Krishnan, a Malayali and the General Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha based in Delhi, and R Arun Kumar from Andhra will be inducted into the Politburo. With women leaders Brinda Karat and Subhashini Ali stepping down, U Vasuki and Mariam Dhawale will join the PB.

U Vasuki is a trade union leader from Tamil Nadu. Mariam Dhawale, from Maharashtra, is a Central Committee member and the National General Secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association. The other new Politburo members are K Balakrishnan (Tamil Nadu), Amraram (Rajasthan), Jitendra Chaudhury (Tripura), and Srideep Bhattacharya (Bengal).

The age limit policy was strictly implemented during the previous Party Congress held in Kannur. However, an exemption was made for Pinarayi in his capacity as Chief Minister. This time, the Bengal unit had demanded that no exemptions be made for Politburo members. Still, among the seven leaders stepping down, Pinarayi was granted an exception.

CPI(M) Politburo Members

  1. M.A. Baby
  2. Mohammad Salim
  3. Pinarayi Vijayan
  4. B.V. Raghavulu
  5. Tapan Sen
  6. Nilotpal Basu
  7. Ramchandra Dome
  8. A. Vijayaraghavan
  9. Ashok Dhawale
  10. M.V. Govindan
  11. U. Vasuki
  12. Viju Krishnan
  13. R. Arun Kumar
  14. Mariam Dhawale
  15. Jiten Choudhary
  16. Srideep Bhattacharya
  17. Amra Ram
  18. K. Balakrishnan