Achuthanandan out, Buddhadeb in

As speculations were rife over both, former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee retained his place in CPI-M poliburo while former Kerala chief minister V. S. Achuthanandan failed to make it, here on Monday, the final day of the 20^thparty congress.

A 15-member politburo and a new central committee, which will be the watchdog of the Communist Party of India-Marxist for next three years which will include Prakash Karat and other members naming, Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, S. Ramachandran Pillai, B.V. Raghavelu, Manik Sarkar, Brinda Karat, Sitaram Yechuri, K. Varadarajan, Bhattacharjee, Nirupam Sen and Biman Basu.

West Bengal's opposition leader, Suryakanta Misra, trade union leader and Centre for Indian Trade Unions president A.K. Padmanabhan from Tamil Nadu and M.A. Baby from Kerala are the three new faces.

Baby made it into the politburo in the seat vacated by Achuthanandan, who was booted out in 2009 for bickering with the powerful Kerala state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

But the veteran had reasons to cheer as there was speculation that he might be forced out of the central committee, that has 89 members including 13 new faces. That did not happen.