By IANS,
New Delhi: The Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Tuesday condoled the death of Naxalite leader Kanu Sanyal, who once violently opposed both parties.
Although they disagreed with their ideology for years, both the CPI and CPI-M said that Sanyal contributed to the growth of the communist movement in the country.
“He was a very popular leader in the early days of the Naxalbari movement,” CPI deputy general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy told IANS.
“Although we disagree with his ideology of armed struggle, he had contributed greatly to the communist movement.”
Reddy said Sanyal had differences with the present Maoist movement, led by the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist.
Sanyal was Tuesday found hanging at his house Siliguri in West Bengal. He was 78. According to police, Sanyal had committed suicide.
He was one of the protagonists of the 1967 peasant uprising in Naxalbari village that gave birth to the Maoist movement in India.
CPI-M politburo member Sitaram Yechury said Sanyal’s death was “very unfortunate” and added that the Naxal leader had been critical of the line adopted by the present Maoist guerrillas.
“After Nandigram and Lalgarh (in West Bengal), Sanyal had been saying that the line adopted by Maoists do not conform to the revolutionary understanding adopted when the Naxalite movement started,” Yechury added.