Yechury started his political career nearly 50 years ago as a student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and became the CPI(M) chief in 2015.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, 72, who was known as an affable leftist and was his party's most popular face in recent times, died on Thursday at the All India Institute in New Delhi. Certified Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
AIIMS professor in-charge (medical cell) Reema Dada said Yechury, who was admitted to the hospital on August 19, was suffering from pneumonia. "The family has donated his body to AIIMS in New Delhi for educational and research purposes," Dada said in a statement.
Yechury started his political career nearly 50 years ago as a student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and became the CPI(M) chief in 2015. During his tenure, the party made pre-election alliances. Last year, the Congress and other opposition parties formed the Indian National Development Alliance (India) for the first time.
The CPI(M) Member of Parliament was elected for the first time from Rajasthan in the 2024 national elections, even as the party and the wider Left bloc failed to regain lost ground, especially in West Bengal where it ruled for 34 years. . The party no longer has any Assembly or Lok Sabha seats in Bengal. He lost power in Tripura in 2018 after 25 years. The CPI(M) now has four MLAs each in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha and 78 assembly members.
Yechury's political clout, however, remained intact in the opposition camp despite the dwindling base of the CPI(M). In the 1970s, he rose to fame when he stopped the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi from attending a JNU event and read the students' demand for her resignation in her presence.
However, Yechury formed a strong bond with former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, which angered some CPI(M) and Congress leaders. When Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described Yechury as "CPI(M) General Secretary for Congress" at a press conference, Sonia Gandhi slammed her colleague for troubling Yechury.
Yechury was the first non-Congress leader when Sonia Gandhi met President APJ Abdul Kalam before the formation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in May 2004, as she wanted to meet then CPI(M) chief Harkishan Singh. . Surjeet. Sonia Gandhi breaks the news at Surjit's residence that he will not become the Prime Minister. Earlier this year, Yechury, who was also present, told HT what happened. “Surjeet, overcome with fever, sprang out of bed: ‘Kya bol rahi hai tu [What are you saying?]’. And then at his request, he started calling alliance leaders to seek support for Manmohan Singh.
Born in Chennai in 1952, Yechury dropped out of Nizam's College in Hyderabad midway and shifted to Delhi where he topped the All India Rank in the Central Board of School Education Class 12 examination in 1970. He studied economics at St. Stephen's College and JNU. . where he first met fellow communist Prakash Karat.
Yechury and Karat were members of the UPA-Left Coordination Committee which met regularly to iron out differences on the Indo-US nuclear deal, to no avail. But unlike the ideologically rigid Karat, Yechury opposed the idea of the Left having 60 MLAs in the 543-member Lok Sabha and withdrew support from the Congress-led government.
Yechury said the Left should not withdraw support from the secular government. He argued that the Left cannot claim credit for his intervention in breakthroughs such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right to Information Act. Weeks later, while he was at an Indian embassy party in Moscow, the Indian ambassador broke the news: "Congratulations, your party has decided to allow us to go to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency in connection with the nuclear deal]." Yechury called Karat from the ambassador's official telephone to ask how the party reached the decision.
The Left's decision to withdraw support was a blow to moderates like Yechury. A day after the Congress-led government won a trust vote in July 2008 after a retreat against the Left and the BJP, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had only one visitor in his office - Yechury.
An ardent admirer of Surjit and Jyoti Basu, Yechury accompanied the two leaders, P Ramamurthy and M Basavapunnaiah, to China. At the breakfast table on the first day, Yechury spoke to everyone in his mother tongue Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu. The next day, when Yechury arrived for breakfast, Basu declared, “This man [Yechuri] is dangerous. He speaks in four different languages and although we are sitting here, none of us can understand what he is saying to the others.
On his first trip to Cuba, Yechury accompanied Basu to meet Fidel Castro. In their late evening meeting, a curious Castro asked Basu about India's coal production and steel capacity. Basu, not the best in statistics, was confused. Castro turned to Yechury, “Young man, I understand that Basu is an old man and may not remember these figures. But you should know that." Yechury said that when he went to Havana again, he had a book on Indian statistics with him.
Known as an affable person, Yechury never shied away from parties, met people across ideological divides or accepted the best of the capitalist West. In his Left Hand Drive column for HT, he mentioned Michael Jackson and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan in October 2009 and said: “This will also help reconcile,
Born in Chennai in 1952, Yechury dropped out of Nizam's College in Hyderabad midway
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