The CPM’s Bengal unit announced its 15-member state secretariat on Thursday that saw the induction of Debalina Hembram from Bankura, Debabrata Ghosh from Hooghly, Jibesh Sarkar from Darjeeling and Jiaul Alam from Jalpaiguri.

Tribal leader Debalina was also inducted in the party’s central committee at the 23rd party congress of the CPM held in Kerala’s Kannur earlier this month.

Of the 15-member strong state secretariat, these four are the new entrants. The vacancies came up after six veterans, including former state secretaries Biman Bose and Surjya Kanta Mishra, were left out of the state committee owing to the newly introduced age cap of 72 years.

These six leaders were dropped from the secretariat as well. They were replaced by the four new inductees, bringing the strength of the secretariat down to 15 from 17.

The new secretariat includes the state secretary Md Salim, who was elected to the post at the party’s state conference last month, Ramchandra Dome, Sridip Bhattacharya, Sujan Chakraborty, Amiya Patra, Abhas Roychowdhuryand Samik Laihri, among others who are members of the new state secretariat.

The party is likely to elect new secretaries to helm the organisational units of South 24-Parganas and Nadia, since Samik Lahiri and Sumit Dey, who head these district units have been elevated to the party's central committee at the Kannur congress.

The CPM in its media note in its official WhatsApp group for journalists stated that Salim had presented a report on how the party needs to work to execute the plans and programmes undertaken in the last state committee meeting in March. It also said that Dome presided over the meeting. The two-day meeting will conclude on Friday.