As per the Constitution and the rules of the Party, "The supreme organ of the Party for the whole country shall be the All-India Party Congress." Functions and powers of the regular Party Congress include "To revise and change the Party Programme and the Party Constitution" and "To determine the Party line on current situation".

The Party is going to call Plenum in Kolkata during the last week of December 2015, obviously to discuss programmes and line of actions to be taken considering the current situation – domestic and global. 

Where is the difference, as far as the decision-making process is concerned, between the All-India Party Congress (which is the supreme organ) and the Plenum?

Asit Sengupta, Hooghly, West Bengal

The Plenum is a wider meeting which can be convened by the Central Committee or the Party Congress to discuss a special issue. The Party Constitution provides for the holding of a Plenum.  Article XV, Clause 13 states:

“The Central Committee may when it deems necessary convene an extended session of the Central Committee, or Plenum or Conference. The Central Committee shall decide the basis of attendance and method of election of delegates for such bodies”.

The Plenum is not being held to “discuss programmes and line of action to be taken considering the current situation – domestic and global” as you have written. This was already done in the Party Congress.

In the present case, the 21st Congress held in Visakhapatanam in April 2015 decided to hold a plenum to discuss organisational issues. Since the Party Congress had concentrated on reviewing the political-tactical line pursued so far and adopted the new political-tactical line, it was felt that the reorienting of the Party organisation and equipping it to implement the political line requires a separate meeting with adequate time for preparations. That is why the Plenum on organisation is being held in the last week of December at Kolkata.

Plenum, conference or extended sessions of the Central Committee have been held at various junctions in the history of the Party. Two plenums were held earlier, the Plenum on ideological issues at Bardhaman in 1968 and the Plenum on organisation in Salkia in 1978. When the Party Programme had to be updated, a conference was held in 2000 in Thiruvananthapuram to adopt it. An extended meeting of the Central Committee was held in August, 2010 at Vijayawada to discuss the new political situation and to work out a current tactical line. Before such special meetings, the Central Committee prepares the necessary documents and they are also discussed inside the Party.