Durgapur (WB): Veteran CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) leader Haradhan Roy today (Oct 18, 2004) announced his decision to sever his 52-year long association with the party following "difference of opinion with the leadership on several issues."

Eighty-year-old Roy, who has never tasted defeat at the hustings, told a press conference at Asansol that outsourcing of mining activities, to which he was opposed to, was one of the key areas where sharp differences had arisen between him and the leadership.

"People who are now at the helm of affairs of the party are not looking after the interests of the labourers anymore," the veteran leader who was six times MLA and three times MP said.

"Decadence has set in among the people at the upper echelons of the party. Ninety per cent of the middle-level party workers are honest, but they are helpless. People at the helm are applying pressure to get things done the way they want," he said.

Roy said, "Globalisation has contributed to criminalisation of politics, which is impossible to weed out. Since it has become impossible, I am bowing out."

The Marxist leader, however, has no plan to form a party or join another one. He wants to form an NGO -- All India Coal Mines and Colliery Areas Bachao Samity for the welfare of colliery workers.