Sitaram Yechury: CPI-M chief, raconteur and convivial face of pragmatic Left politics

PTI, Sep 12, 2024, 8:16 PM IST

New Delhi: Polyglot, amiable and an eclectic conversationalist who could hold forth on film songs as much as politics, CPI-M’s fifth general secretary Sitaram Yechury was the pragmatic leader with friends across the political spectrum. The three-time party chief, who passed away on Thursday after prolonged illness at Delhi’s All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), took over the reins of the party when Left fortunes were on the decline. He was 72.

Quite unlike his predecessor Prakash Karat, from whom he took over in April 2015 and who was known for hardline positions, Yechury thrived on the challenges of coalition politics. In this way, he was more akin to his mentor, the late party leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet.

While Surjeet was a key player in the coalition era during the National Front government of VP Singh – formed in 1989 – and the United Front government of 1996-97, both supported from outside by the CPI-M, Yechury was the go to man in the UPA years from 2004-2014.

Yechury, who was born in Chennai and studied at Delhi’s St Stephen’s College and Jawaharlal Nehru University, was a trusted ally of United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi in Manmohan Singh’s 10 years as prime minister.

He was the first non-Congress leader Gandhi called after she met then president APJ Abdul Kalam in 2004 when she turned down the post of prime minister and rallied for Singh.

Earlier, Yechury, one of the Left’s most recognised faces, worked with Congress leader P Chidambaram to draft the common minimum programme for the United Front government.

It was an equation that survived the shock withdrawal of support by the Left to the UPA in 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal. Yechury played an important role in the discussions with the UPA government on the issue.

Expressing his condolences, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh described him as an “unrepentant Marxist with a pragmatic streak, a pillar of the CPI(M), and a superb Parliamentarian”.

While his political colleagues remembered Yechury the politician, old friends went down memory lane to remember their walks from Rafi Marg to Chanakya to watch films.

Yechury, who famously loved old Hindi film songs, books and endless conversations on politics, was a Rajya Sabha MP for 12 years till 2017, remaining a powerful voice of the Opposition.

At the end of his tenure, he refused to take another term and said in his farewell speech in the Upper House that he came to Parliament “reluctantly”. As Left activists, they used to say it was better to stay far away from the “gol building” (the round building), he remarked.

Yechury became general secretary of the CPI-M at the 21st party Congress in Visakhapatnam on April 19, 2015 , taking over from Karat at a time the party was down from 43 MPs in 2004 to nine in 2014. He was subsequently re-elected to the post in 2018, and 2022.

The Surjeet protégé’s negotiation skills were crucial as he joined his predecessor, Prakash Karat in the UPA-Left Coordination Committee.

In an interview with PTI in 2015, after taking over as party general secretary, Yechury said they should have withdrawn support on issues like price rise as the people could not be mobilised on the nuclear deal issue in the 2009 general elections. He was known for his strong and articulate speeches in Rajya Sabha on issues ranging from the plight of the farmers and the working classes to the government’s economic and foreign policies and the growing threat of communalism.

The CPI-M leader was fluent in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bangla, and also Malayalam. He was also well-versed in Hindu mythology, and often used those references in his speeches especially to attack the BJP.

Yechury remained one of the most vocal critics of the Narendra Modi government and its liberal economic policies.

His alliance-building skills came to use again for the Left in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. In 2018, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Central Committee of the CPI-M had rejected the proposal of having any understanding or alliance with Congress. Yechury had then offered to resign as the general secretary.

However, in the run-up to the 2024 elections, as talks for a united opposition grouping started and opposition parties got together to form the INDIA bloc, CPI-M was part of it. Yechury remained among the key faces of the alliance.

Though CPI-M was part of the INDIA bloc in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the Congress and communist parties fought separately in Kerala, the last remaining Left bastion where CPI-M won only one seat. However, being a part of the bloc helped the CPI-M and it won a seat in Rajasthan and two seats in Tamil Nadu, taking its total tally up to four, from three in the 17th Lok Sabha.

His journey in politics started with the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), which he joined in 1974 and became a member of the party the very next year. He was arrested a few months later during the Emergency.

After his release, Yechury was elected president of the JNU Students’ Union thrice. In the SFI, he became the all-India joint secretary in 1978 and its president soon thereafter.

When he became SFI president in 1978, he was the first person who did not belong to either West Bengal or Kerala to occupy the post.

His rise in the party was swift. In 1985, he was elected to the Central Committee of the CPI-M and to the Politburo in 1992 at the age of 40 and then party chief in 2015. Born in a Telugu-speaking family in Chennai on August 12, 1952, Yechury’s father Sarveswara Somayajula Yechury was an engineer in the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation. His mother Kalpakam Yechury was a government officer.

He grew up in Hyderabad and his family moved to Delhi in 1969. A bright student, Yechury achieved the all-India first rank in the Central Board of Secondary Education examinations and subsequently did his graduation in economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

He did his post-graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University again with a first-class, but could not complete his PhD due to his arrest during the Emergency after having remained underground for some time and organising resistance.

He also headed the party’s international department and was editor of the party organ ‘People’s Democracy’ for several years.

In a recent interview to PTI, Yechury said the 2024 verdict was a setback for the BJP but also expressed concern over his party’s marginally improved performance.

He said serious introspection would be done on how to close the gap between its ability to launch struggles on the ground and its power to win seats.

Yechury is survived by his wife Seema Chishti and his two children, Akhila and Danish. His elder son, Ashish Yechury, passed away due to Covid in 2021. Yechury was earlier married to Indrani Mazumdar.