Workers Party of India is a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

in the

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

n state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

. WPI has its origin in the Democratic Vanguard in India. DV was formed in 1943 when a group led by Jiban Lal Chattopadhyay broke away from the Radical Democratic Party of

Manabendra Nath Roy Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy ...

. DV were dissatisfied with the development of RDP into a non-Marxist outfit. Jiban Lal Chattopadhyay had been elected secretary of the

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

in 1930. On 12 June 1960 DV became the Workers Party of India.Gupta, P.K.S.
Political parties in West Bengal
'. p. 182, 201 The party adopted a

hammer and sickle The hammer and sickle (Unicode: "☭") zh, s=锤子和镰刀, p=Chuízi hé liándāo or zh, s=镰刀锤子, p=Liándāo chuízi, labels=no is a symbol meant to represent proletarian solidarity, a union between agricultural and industr ...

in a five-pointed star as its symbol. The party held its Second All India Conference in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

in 1965, its Third All India Conference in 1970 and the Fourth All India General Conference in 1971.Gupta, P.K.S.
Political parties in West Bengal
' The 8th All India Conference was held in 1976. WPI was part of the United Left Front that contested the 1967 West Bengal state assembly election. WPI was part of the

Communist Party of India (Marxist) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) (abbreviated as CPI(M)/CPIM/CPM) is a Marxist–Leninist communist political party in India. It is the largest communist party of India in terms of membership and electoral seats and one of the na ...

-led United Front, which governed

1967–1971. Jyotibhushan Bhattacharya, a leader of the Workers Party, was the Education Minister and Information Minister in the two United Front governments in 1967 and 1969 in West Bengal. He was the General Secretary of the Party since 1970. Jiban Lal Chattopadhyay died in 1970. In 1976 WPI split into two. One faction, led by Monidranarayan Basu, retained the name WPI. The other faction led by Bhattacharya called itself Communist Workers Party. Subsequently the Communist Workers Party of India changed its name to Workers Party. Basu died in a car accident, and Salien Pal took over the leadership. In the

1980 Indian general election General elections were held in India on 3 and 6 January 1980 to elect the members of the 7th Lok Sabha. The Janata Party alliance came into power in the 1977 general elections amidst public anger with the Indian National Congress (INC) and th ...

WPI fielded Mohammed Elias Razi in the Raiganj constituency. He obtained 13,554 votes (2.89%). WPI publishes ''Ganabiplab'' (Popular Revolution) in

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the ...

. As of the early 1980s, ''Ganabiplab'' was printed in 1,500 copies and its editor was Hemendra Behari Mukherjee. Its publication was somewhat irregular at the time. WPI considers the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as revisionist. Of late, WPI has joined the Left Front in 2011. Its secretary is Manik Dutta.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Workers Party Of India Political parties established in 1943 Communist parties in India Political parties in West Bengal 1943 establishments in India