Sitaram Yechury, a stalwart of Left politics in India
Hyderabad: CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, who passed away at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi on Thursday, was a stalwart of the Left politics in India, and also known for his personal relations with political adversaries.
Survived by his wife and journalist Seema Chishti, a son, and a daughter, he was 72.
Succeeding Prakash Karat as the CPI-M’s General Secretary in 2015, he was re-elected for another term in 2018. A member of CPI-M Politburo, the highest decision-making body of the party since 1992, he was a member of the Rajya Sabha from 2005 to 2017.
An affable, soft-spoken and suave, Yechury was a polyglot with great oratory skills. He was known for his friendly nature towards his political rivals.
Yechury was born in Madras (Chennai) in a Telugu Brahmin family on August 12, 1952. His father Sarweshwar Somayajulu was an engineer in the Andhra Pradesh State Road Corporation while his mother Kalpakalam was a government officer.
Completing his school education in Hyderabad and his matriculation from the All Saints School. Later, he shifted to Delhi, where he completed his higher secondary education and did a B.A. in Economics from St. Stephen’s College.
Yechury’s political journey began when he was pursuing his M.A. at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. As President of the Students’ Union, he was attracted to Marxist ideology and soon became a member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of the CPI-M.
After formally joining the CPI-M in 1975, he became an active politician, fighting against the Emergency and raising his voice for worker rights, land reforms, and a secular state.
He was just 32 when he was made a Central Committee member.
Initially known as one of the key faces of the anti-Congress Opposition Front, Yechury later emerged as an important figure in coalition-building efforts in national politics by bringing together various Janata Party factions to keep the Congress out.
He, along with other Marxist leaders, cobbled up an alliance to make H.D. Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal the Prime Minister in 1996, after the Congress could not get a majority. With P. Chidambaram, then in the Tamil Manila Congress of G.K. Moopanar, Yechury played a key role in the drafting of the Common Minimum Programme for the United Front government. He later helped I.K. Gujral become Deve Gowda’s successor.
Yechury was once again a key face in 2004 when the Left bloc extended key outside support to the Congress-led UPA government led by PM Manmohan Singh based on a Common Minimum Programme.
He was in favour of friendly ties with Congress to keep the BJP out. Though the Left Front withdrew support to the UPA in 2008 over the India-US nuclear deal, Yechury was seen as a leader who advocated closer cooperation with the Congress.
In 2015, Yechury took over as CPI-M’s General Secretary when the party was passing through challenging times after losing power in its stronghold West Bengal in 2011.
However, Yechury could not stop the slide in the CPI-M’s political fortunes as the party also lost its citadel Tripura and though it created history by winning an unprecedented second term in Kerala in 2021, it was routed in the Lok Sabha polls in the state as well as erstwhile bastion West Bengal.
Ahead of the 2024 polls, he was also a key figure in the formation of the INDIA bloc.