The CPM has elected a Dalit leader to the politburo for the first time, marking the milestone at the Kannur party congress that chose Sitaram Yechury as general secretary for a third term.

By electing seven-time Lok Sabha MP and Bengal leader Ramchandra Dome, the CPM has sought to address the longstanding criticism about the absence of Scheduled Castes in the highest rungs of its pyramid-like decision-making structure.

Dome, 63, told The Telegraph on Sunday: “As a communist, I wouldn’t consider myself as the first Dalit in the politburo or any such thing. Whatever I will be asked to do by the party, I will work accordingly.”

Given its opposition to identity politics, the CPM had long ignored caste and focused on class struggle. But in recent years, party documents have acknowledged this as a flawed strategy in the Indian context.

In 2015, while holding out the hope of some change in the party structure to accommodate Dalits in the hierarchy, outgoing general secretary Prakash Karat had called for a special session of Parliament to discuss the status of Scheduled Castes on the 125th birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Yechury, who succeeded Karat as general secretary in 2015, has been advocating the slogan “Lal salam, jai Bhim”, which combines a communist chant with a Dalit salutation. But it has taken another seven years for the glass ceiling to crack.

One reason for the delay, party insiders said, is that unlike other parties where office-bearers are appointed, no one can make it to the CPM politburo directly without being part of the central committee, which is elected by the party congress.

The CPI, the split from which created the CPM, had already inducted D. Raja, a leader from the Dalit community, not just into its top leadership but as the party’s general secretary.

Apart from Dome, the politburo now has two new members: All India Kisan Sabha president Ashok Dhawale and Kerala LDF convener A. Vijayaraghavan.

They replace former Lok Sabha MP and All India Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah and former Bengal state secretary Biman Bose, both of whom have crossed the new age limit of 75 for politburo membership.

The central committee has been trimmed from 95 members to 85, and has 17 new members, including 3 women. This takes the total strength of women in the central committee to 15.

Yechury’s election as general secretary was smoother in comparison with the two previous occasions, with the hardliners failing to put up a concerted challenge.

Apart from its receding political footprint — for the first time since Independence the CPM has no member in the Bengal Assembly — the party has also seen a drop in membership since the Hyderabad congress in 2018.

From 1,007,903, the membership is now down to 985,757, with the biggest erosion witnessed in Bengal where the CPM has lost over 32,000 members in four years.

Dome’s rise

A physician by training, Dome, the CPM central committee member till his latest elevation, was a public representative until 2014. From 1989 to 2009 he was elected from Birbhum. In 2009, he succeeded former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the Bolpur constituency. He had also served as the chief whip of the CPM in the Lok Sabha.

Dome was born to a family of daily wage earners at a village in Birbhum’s Mohammadbazar block. His brothers are still involved in agricultural activities.

“He (Dome) is a veteran politician from Birbhum and our inspiration. Even after facing electoral defeats, he has not quit the ground. At any programme, any event, Ramda leads us from the front,” a CPM leader in Birbhum said. Dome has also been elected as the highest office-bearer of the Dalit Soshan Mukti Manch, a national platform of several organisations and individuals who fight for Dalit rights.

In 2018, Dome was left bleeding profusely after he was attacked by suspected Trinamul supporters in Birbhum’s Nalhati while he was leading a procession of party candidates to file nominations for the panchayat polls. In 2015, he was injured after a rally he had participated in was attacked. The rally was led by Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations or BPMO, an umbrella of 113 left organisations.

Recently, Dome was seen accompanying the party’s state secretary Md. Salim to Bogtui in Birbhum’s Rampurhat where nine people were charred to death. Dome and Salim were the first political representatives to have reached the spot.

Two among the three politburo members who were dropped as they have crossed the 75-year age barrier fixed for politburo and central committee members hail from Bengal. While Biman Bose is 81, AIKS leader Hanna Mollah was dropped as he had reached the age of 76.

Three new faces from Bengal, Samik Lahiri, Sumit De and Debalina Hembram, have also made it to the central committee. Hembram, who is a member of the tribal community, is also one of the three new female faces inducted in the central committee.

Bose and Mollah have been accommodated in the central committee as special invitees along with S. Ramachandran Pillai, who was also dropped from the politburo because of age restrictions.