CPM leader Sitaram Yechury passes away: A look at his political journey

Veteran Marxist and affable across political spectrum in India, Sitaram Yechury, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI-M, general secretary passed away on Thursday (September 12) at the age of 72. The steadfast CPM leader was undergoing treatment at Delhi’s AIIMS for a critical respiratory condition, his party said in a release on Tuesday (September 10). The 72-year-old leader developed an acute respiratory tract infection in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU).

Yechury was first hospitalised at AIIMS on August 19 for the treatment of a chest infection resembling pneumonia. Three days later, on August 22, Yechury posted a six-minute video on social media from the hospital, expressing his condolences to former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya, who passed away on August 8.

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The CPM general secretary since 2015, Yechury never assumed a role in any government though he came close to becoming a Union minister in 2004, when his party-led Left Front collaborated with the Congress-led coalition at the Centre. But his party ultimately decided to extend outside support to the first Manmohan Singh government (2004-09). The Left Front, however, withdrew support to the government in 2008 over the India-US nuclear deal.

A Telugu-speaker from Madras becomes Left’s voice in Delhi

Born on 12 August 1952 in Chennai (then called Madras), Yechury hailed from a Telugu-speaking Brahmin family. The family was mostly based in Hyderabad. His father, Sarveswara Somayajula Yechury, worked as an engineer, who worked for the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, and his mother, Kalpakam Yechury, was a government officer. Yechury completed his schooling from Hyderabad’s All Saints High School before moving in the wake of the 1969 Telangana agitation to Delhi’s President’s Estate School.

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Excellent in his studies, Yechury topped the CBSE Higher Secondary Examination and joined Delhi University’s prestigious St Stephen’s College, graduating with a BA (Hons) in Economics. His next step was pursuing a master’s degree in Economics from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where his political journey began. His doctoral studies were interrupted by the political turmoil caused by the imposition of National Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government in 1975.

At JNU, Yechury became a member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), affiliated to the CPM, in 1974. A year later, he became a member of the CPI(M).

During the Emergency, Yechury went underground, organising resistance against the Indira government that had turned into an authoritarian regime. His efforts to mobilise students against the government resulted in multiple arrests. Through those Emergency years, Yechury emerged as a symbol of defiance against authoritarianism. After the Emergency, he was elected President of the JNU Students’ Union.

Yechury and Prakash Karat were instrumental in transforming JNU into a Leftist bastion. By 1978, he had risen to become the All India Joint Secretary of the SFI, and later, its President. He continued to grow within the CPI(M), joining the Central Committee in 1984, the Central Secretariat in 1988, and the Politburo in 1992.

In 1978, he was elected as SFI’s all-India joint secretary, a role that saw his rise within the CPM structure. He was invited to the CPM’s central Committee of the CPI(M) in 1984. Yechury was elected to the CPM’s central committee in the XII Congress in 1985, to the central secretariat at the XIII Congress in 1988 and to the Polit Bureau at the XIV Congress in 1992. He left the SFI as its president in 1986.

Yechury as national politician

Yechury’s ascent within the CPM was credited to his exceptional organisational skills and ideological conviction. A pragmatic leader, he was known for his efforts to build coalitions among the left-of-the-centre parties especially during the late 1990s and the decade of the 2000s to challenge dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Indian politics.

He played a key role in drafting the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of the United Front government in 1996, after the Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao was voted out. An amalgamation of smaller parties saw former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Deve Gowda become the prime minister, with the outside support of the Left Front.

Yechury would again play an instrumental role in the coalition-building exercise of 2004 when the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of the BJP-led coalition was voted out but the Congress failed to secure a majority. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of Manmohan Singh came to power and Yechury convinced the CPM to offer support to him from outside

A nuke-deal supporter in the party opposing it

Yechury’s political vision and pragmatic approach at times put him in conflict with party hardliners. This was most evident during the negotiations for the Indo-US nuclear deal — which Manmohan Singh had made a prestige issue and for which the US President George W Bush pressured his cabinet to get done — in 2007-08.

While the CPM and its ally the Communist Party of India (CPI) officially opposed the deal, Yechury thought it was the need of the hour. He supported the deal and Manmohan Singh on this agreement, however, he wanted to ensure that the Congress-led government addressed the CPM’s concerns.

A Rajya Sabha tale

Yechury was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2005, representing West Bengal, and quickly became a prominent figure in the Upper House. Known for his articulate speeches and incisive critiques of government policies, he was an outspoken advocate for the marginalised and a champion of secularism. His second term in the Rajya Sabha concluded in 2017 as the CPM stalled his chances of another term despite him being the party chief at the time, having led the Left Front’s attack on the Narendra Modi government with a relentless campaign.

In the Rajya Sabha election, the Kerala unit of the CPM — controlled by CM Pinarayi Vijayan and Yechury’s long-time party colleague Prakash Karat — denied him the party ticket from the southern state.

When the Congress offered to support him from West Bengal to keep a prominent anti-BJP voice in Parliament, Karat and Vijayan vetoed the proposal saying the party would not take support from the grand-old-party, its rival in Bengal and Kerala, for a Rajya Sabha seat. The Kerala unit also said that it was a general rule that no party leader would be nominated for more than two terms.

As the CPM general secretary

In April 2015, Yechury was elected the general secretary of the party, succeeding Prakash Karat. His leadership marked a shift towards a more inclusive and coalition-oriented approach within the party and outside in collaborating for a bigger national coalition.

He espoused the idea that broad alliances were the need of the hour to contest the BJP’s election-winning machine at the national and regional levels. Despite internal opposition, Yechury showed commitment to this strategy.

Yechury is survived by his journalist wife Seema Chishti and daughter Akhila Yechury from his earlier marriage to Malini Mazumdar, the daughter of Left-wing activist Vina Mazumdar. Yechury lost his son Ashish Yechury to Covid-19 in 2021.