Comrade K. Balakrishnan has been elected as the Secretary of the Tamil Nadu State Committee in the 22nd Tamil Nadu State Conference of the CPI(M). The conference was held at Thoothukudi from February 17-20.
The conference was attended by CPI(M) General Secretary Comrade Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau Member Comrade Prakash Karat, freedom fighter and veteran communist leader Comrade N. Sankaraiah and 650 delegates and observers. An 80-member State Committee was elected (with one seat left vacant). A 15-member Secretariat was also elected. The conference also elected 50 delegates for the All India Party Congress, as well as a 5-member Control Commission. Comrade S. Balasubramanian was elected the President of the Control Commission.
The newly-elected State Secretary Comrade K. Balakrishnan became a party member in 1970. In 1972, as a student of Annamalai University, he was in the forefront of student protests and was brutally attacked at the instigation of the university administration and he was also expelled from the university. In 1973, he was elected the first State President of the Students Federation of India.
In 1975, during the emergency, he continued party work even while going underground. After discharging various responsibilities at the district and State level at the All India Kisan Sabha, he became the party district secretary of Cuddalore district. Comrade Balakrishnan was elected to the State Committee of the party in 1982, became a State Secretariat member in 1998 and was elected to the party’s Central Committee in 2012.
Comrade Balakrishnan was elected as the MLA of Chidambaram constituency in 2011 and had a sterling record as a legislator. He has also been in the forefront of struggles for the rights of the oppressed, farmers, agricultural workers and women, has undergone imprisonment on many occasions during these struggles and was also subject to attacks by the police. He played a key role in ensuring justice for the victim in the aftermath of the rape of a woman in Chidambaram.