Kannur: At a time when the Left parties are facing the worst time in history, CPI General Secretary D Raja on Wednesday called for a reunification of the communist movement in the country to tide over the situation.

While CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said strengthening the Left unity was of "vital importance" to meet the challenge, the talk of revival of the communist movement on a "principled basis" was raised by Raja.

The call for Left unity echoed in the inaugural venue of the 23rd Party Congress of the CPI(M) here at Kannur, which is considered as a Left citadel.

The general secretaries of both the Left parties stressed on the need for working together to fight against the RSS and the BJP.

"It is the Left alone that can ideologically challenge and defeat the RSS providing an alternative. Our struggle should combine forces - all progressive, secular, democratic sections of the society - to uproot the discriminatory regime and cleanse the society of the hateful ideological influence of the RSS," Raja said.

Our party has been consistently saying that reunification of the communist movement on a principled basis is the need of the emerging situation, Raja added.

He said the ongoing meeting of the CPI(M) and the upcoming 24th Congress of the CPI in October 2022 are the best platforms for both the parties to introspect, discuss and debate all those issues and come up with concrete actionable programmes.

"I am certain that the deliberations of the 23rd Congress of the CPI(M) will contribute to the consolidation of Left unity and popular struggles against the RSS-BJP combine," Raja said.

In his address, Yechury thanked Raja for being present at the event. He also thanked All India Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas, Revolutionary Socialist Party General Secretary Manoj Bhattacharya, and CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, for their greetings to the 23rd Party Congress.

"In the present context, the working together of the Left Parties to strengthen Left unity is of vital importance to meet the current challenges being faced by the working people, the secular democratic republic of India and its Constitutional order. Their greetings reflect our mutual desire and resolve to strengthen Left unity," Yechury said.

Although both the parties have often raised the matter since 1964, when the undivided CPI was split into two over China-Russia tensions and communist doctrinal differences, nothing has materialised yet.