Kolkata, Jan 20 (IANS): Veteran CPI(M) leader and former party legislator Tanmoy Bhattacharya, accused last year of sexual harassment of a woman journalist associated with a local Youtube channel, will remain suspended for another six months.
The decision of the party’s state committee in West Bengal taken last year was endorsed at the two-day central committee meeting that concluded at New Town in the northern outskirts of Kolkata on Sunday evening, confirmed a central committee member on Monday morning.
Bhattacharya had, however, kept himself incommunicado from the media till the time the report was filed and hence his reaction to the matter was not available.
The two-day central committee meeting of the party was presided over by the party’s existing politburo coordinator and the former general secretary Prakash Karat.
The post of CPI(M) general secretary is lying vacant currently because of the sudden and untimely demise of the party’s erstwhile portfolio holder Sitaram Yechury last year.
Yechury’s successor will be announced at CPI(M)’s forthcoming party Congress at Madurai in Tamil Nadu in April.
In October last year, the female reporter attached to an independent YouTube channel on Facebook accused Bhattacharya of making “sexually inappropriate” behaviour with her while she went to his residence to interview him then.
The state committee of the CPI(M) suspended him the same day and also initiated an internal probe against him by the party’s internal complaints committee.
Later, based on the FIR filed by the reporter at Baranagar Police Station, Bhattacharya was summoned by the cops several times for questioning. However, no coercive action was initiated against him by the police administration.
Bhattacharya had been vehemently denying the accusation of sexual harassment. He has also claimed that the charges of sexual harassment against him were a “well-planned plot” to malign his image.
“I am a communist and will continue to remain so till my last breath. If I am proven innocent I will continue as a CPI(M) activist. If I am held guilty by my party and expelled, I will remain a communist till my last day. Even if I cannot continue as a CPI(M) activist, I will continue as a communist,” Bhattacharya had said earlier.