NEW DELHI: Senior leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPT) today held consultations to chalk out a strategy to face the charge that the party received huge funds from the rest while Soviet Union in contravention of Indian laws.

With the party general secretary Mr. Indrajt Gupta being out of town today these dealers however declined to make any formal comment on the revelation in todays The Times of India that the central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) asked the KGB in 1990 tohandover$500000 (about Rs 90 lakh at the official 1990 rates) to the CPI.

The communist leaders apparently shaken by the first ever concrete charge of foreign funding are expected to hold a formal meeting here tomorrow after consulting Mr. Gupta who was said to be in Bombay today. Mr. M. Farooqi Mr. Chaturanan Mishra and Mr NE Balaram are believed to have participated in today’s consultants.

US PLOT: Requesting anonymity senior party leader described the revelation as a part of the US conspiracy against world communist movement being carried out with the connivance of the Russian president Mr. Boris Yeltsin. He however said the erstwhile Soviet Union used to fund certain relationships and publications of the Peoples Publishing House.

The CPI leader said the party was ready for any public scrutiny of its funds. When asked if he would be willing to go on record on this he said he would rather wait for the party general secretary to responds.

Article extracted from this publication >> April 3, 1992