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Kanai Pal was an Indian Trotskyist politician. A labour leader active in Santipur, West Bengal, he represented the area in the state legislature 1962–1969.
As a politician, Pal was known to be self-sacrificing and sincere.[1] He was jailed a number of times.[2] Pal took part in the struggle for Indian independence and was convicted during the 1942 Quit India movement.[3] He played a leading role in sabotage action group in Nadia District.[4] In one confrontation during the August Revolution his spinal cord was badly injured.[2] He later lost a finger in police lathi charge in protest for right for refugees from the Partition of India.[2]
At the time of the 1951–1952 elections, Pal was a member of the Tagore faction of the Revolutionary Communist Party of India.[1] He donated all his personal belongings, estimated at 15,000 Indian rupees, to the party.[1] Pal contested the Santipur constituency in the 1952 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election on a RCPI ticket and finished in second place with 4,564 votes (21.43% of the votes in the constituency).[5] He finished in fourth place with 2,920 votes (6.9%).[6] However, Pal and his followers split away from the Tagore faction of RCPI in 1953.[1] Pal was disappointed with the lack of support from the party during his election campaign.[1] Pal's Santipur-based faction merged into the United Marxist League in 1954, which soon renamed itself as the Communist League.[1]
Pal again contested the Santipur seat in the 1957 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, this time on an independent ticket.[7] He finished in second place with 13,470 votes (36.78%).[7] In 1958 the Communist League merged into the Revolutionary Workers Party.[8] The RWP merged into the Dasgupta-led RCPI in 1960.[8]
Pal won the Santipur seat in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly in the 1962 and 1967 elections.[9] In 1962 he ran as an independent.[10] With 26,553 votes (53.80%) he defeated the incumbent Indian National Congress legislator Haridas De.[10] Soon after being elected, on 6 November 1962 he was jailed under the West Bengal Security Act.[3][11] He was again arrested in 1965, under the Defense of India Rules.[12] In December 1965 the Fourth International Congress elected Pal, along with other jailed Trotskyist leaders as member of its 'honorary presidium'.[13]
In 1967 he contested on a Communist Party of India (Marxist) ticket.[9] He retained the seat, obtaining 20,695 votes (47.63%).[14]
In the 1969 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election Pal ran as an independent in Santipur, against the official RCPI candidate M. Mokshed Ali.[15] He finished in third place with 3289 votes (7.15%).[15]
In the 1971 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election Pal ran as an independent in Santipur, against the official RCPI candidate Bimalananda Mukherjee.[6] He finished in fourth place with 2,920 votes (6.9%).[6] In 1972 he played a role building the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) in Nadia District.[16][17]
Pal died,[when?] having suffered from kidney failure, anemia, high blood pressure and paralysis.[2]
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