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CPI-ML general secretary Vinod Misra dead

Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) general secretary Vinod Misra died in Lucknow this evening of a massive heart attack. He was 52.

Misra was admitted to the King George Medical College Hospital this morning after he complained of chest pain. There he suffered three successive strokes and died.

Misra's wife, Kumudni Pati, a politburo member of the CPI-ML, was by his bedside.

Misra had gone to Lucknow on Wednesday to participate in the party's central standing committee meeting. He was due to return to Patna today after addressing a press conference.

CPI-ML state secretary Akhilendra Pratap Singh said Misra's body would be taken to the Dayanand Seva Sansthan in Lucknow where the party held its standing committee meeting, and later to Delhi for the last rites.

Misra was CPI-ML general secretary for 25 years. He was born in Kanpur, but chose Bihar as his place of work. There he strengthened the party, leading an armed struggle by the Bhojpur farmers.

He went underground for about 10 years and, when the party opted for a 'parliamentary democracy' a few years ago, keeping open its option of armed struggle, Misra bid goodbye to his underground life.

Misra, along with Naxalite leader Nagbhushan Patnaik and others, had launched the Indian People's Front in the early 1980s with the CPI-ML as its main constituent. The IPF was later dissolved and the CPI-ML started contesting election under its own banner.

UNI

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