The Dange loyalists were in a majority in the party’s National Council and they used this to institutionalise their revisionist policies. Our proposals to bring back unity in the party were rejected by them time and again. The revisionists wanted unity on their terms and refused to make any compromises with those who held opposite views. On the one hand, they were talking of unity while, on the other, they went about trying break just that. In West Bengal, we were in a majority. It was decided to set up a parallel state committee. Even as EMS, Pramode Dasgupta, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and myself were holding talks with the Dange loyalists, they issued a statement saying any discussions on unity could be held only within the National Council’s jurisdiction. Thirty-two members walked out of the meeting of the National Council in protest. Incidentlly, Bhupesh Gupta also took part in this protest but did not attend the Tenali Convention.

The 32 members who were walked out of the council meeting issued a statement later describing what had prompted them to take this unprecedented step. They said that the political resolution placed at the National Council meeting had made it clear that the revisionists would not take up class struggle as a main policy and instead go in for compromise.

It was in this context that these members called for a convention at Tenali in Andhra Pradesh on behalf of CPI. During July 7-11, 1964, 146 delegates representing one lakh party members converged at the convention in Tenali. The purpose of the convention was to reevaluate the crisis facing the party on the political front because of the revisionists' policies. Of the 146 delegates, all but 10 of them had joined the party 15 years back while the rest had joined before 1935. All of them were wellknown leaders in their respective states and had done a lot to establish the Communist movement. The appeal that was made at the convention elucidated how the Dange loyalists had imposed the policy of "Congress-Communist unity" on the entire party and how anybody who dared to oppose this had been expelled.

The convention began on July 7, 1964 at 4 p.m. Hoisting the flag of the Communist Party, one of the founder members of the party, Muzaffar Ahmed, said," Let us all come forward to take an oath to form the real Communist Party." A presidium comprising A. K. Gopalan, Shiv Verma and myself was formed to go into the routine activities of the convention.

After adopting some condolence resolutions, Comrade P. Sundaraiyya welcomed the delegates on behalf of the reception committee. The agenda was then set and one of them was the call to hold the seventh congress of the party. The appeal of the 32 members of the National Council ended with the words:

"Those who are worried about the results of this step may please understand that we have been forced to take this position and that this does not please us. We are still anxious to avoid taking this step. This is why we harped on unity (at a time when that could have been realised). But this endeavour of ours has only met with opposition.

"We appeal to all of you to cooperate with us. Please help us in reorganising the Communist Party to make it a unified platform of the labour class and uphold the revolutionary tradition and history of the Indian people".

It was decided that the seventh congress of the Communist Party of India would be held during October 24-31 the same year. The agenda would be 1) Adoption of a working programme 2) Re-organising the party administration and hierarchy 3) Adoption of the political organisational report 4) Election of a new leadership and 5) Election of the Central Control Commission of the party.

It was also decided that the Congress would be based on the membership of the party till December 31, 1963. All those whose membership had expired on December 31, would be taken in as full-fledged members and those who had not renewed their membership in 1961 would be given a change for renewal. However, it would be left to the states to decide on who would be their respective representatives at the Congress. One delegate could represent 250 members per state but it was also decided that each state would have to send a minimum of five such representatives.

The Sino-Indian border dispute was also on the agenda. The resolution which was adopted said, "There is no alternative to a peaceful dialogue to solve the border dispute". On the "First International", the resolution said, "The CPI convention wishes to remain loyal to the global labour class and has decided that September 28, 1964 will be observed with due honour as the centenary of the formation of the first International." August 5, 1964, was also to be observed suitably as it marked the 75th birthday of Muzaffar Ahmed.

The convention decided to set up an organising committee ahead of the party congress. Apart from the 32 National Council members, this committee also included S.S. Srivastava from Bihar, Achintya Bhattacharya from Assam, M.Y. Kolhatkar from Maharastra, Banamali Das from Orissa and another member from Karnataka. It was proposed that a kitty of Rs. 25.000 would be formed for the work of the organising committee.

The state-wise break up the Tenali Convention was as follows :-