JOIN USThe next CPM party congress will be held in April 2015 in Visakhapatnam, where the Left party will see the exit of Prakash Karat as its general secretary.
At the end of the three-day Central Committee meeting here, the party decided in favour of the Andhra Pradesh town after West Bengal, Maharashtra and Tripura declined to host the 21st congress.
There will be party conferences at all levels in the run up to the congress. The previous CPM party congress was held in Kozhikode in 2012.
The Vishakhapatnam meet may be the last one for Karat, who will have completed three terms as general secretary, heading the party in the 2009 and 2014 general elections.
While the Left party’s tally in Parliament deteriorated in 2009, it was decimated in the 2014 election as the communists were left with only 12 seats in the Lok Sabha. The rise of the BJP and Narendra Modi also led to a 50 per cent drop in the party's vote-share in 2014, as compared to 2004.