The CPI on Thursday re-elected 82-year-old A B Bardhan as its general secretary for the fourth consecutive term, ignoring his appeals to be allowed to step down. On the concluding day of the 20th National Congress of the party here, Bardhan was unanimously elected to lead the party again.

As Bardhan complained of old age, the party elevated its MP from Nalgonda (Andhra Pradesh), S Sudhakar Reddy, as deputy general secretary while national secretary D Raja will continue in his post.

The CPI congress concluded late in the evening with a massive public meeting at the Nizam College grounds where thousands of party workers and people had gathered.

Bardhan later said a new National Council has been elected with 125 full members and 13 candidate members. It would have 30 fresh faces.

The council met and elected a 31-member national executive in which there are five new members — Aziz Pasha, C Divakaran, N A Raja, Pallab Sengupta and Dr Kango. The party’s National Congress also elected a nine-member secretariat comprising Bardhan, Sudhakar Reddy Reddy, D Raja, Gurudas Dasgupta, Nandagopal Bhattacharya, C K Chandrappan, Shameem Faizi, Atul Kumar Anjan and Amarjeet Kaur.

A number of persons from Andhra Pradesh were elected to the CPI’s various panels. The council has 11 members in the council from Andhra, including K Narayana, MLC P Nageshwar Rao, Rajya Sabha MP Aziz Pasha, former MLA K Ramakrishna, Venkata Reddy, ex-MLA G Malesh, MLA P Venkat Reddy, P J Chadra Shekhar Rao, Sidhi Venkateshwarlu, Pashya Padma and Uppala Nageshwar Rao.