Sitaram Yechury (72), whose communist beliefs sat comfortably with affability and political practicality, breathed his last at AIIMS. The hospital said Yechury was admitted with pneumonia. His family donated his body to the hospital for research and training.
PM Modi noted Yechury’s “ability to connect across political spectrum” while paying tributes to the departed leader. CPM’s Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan spoke of his “unmatched ideological commitment and strategic brilliance”.
Yechury, CPM general secretary when he passed away, rose through the ranks, starting as a student activist in JNU. A 1977 photo of him reading a students’ resolution to Indira Gandhi, demanding she quit as JNU chancellor, has gained iconic status, partly since Mrs Gandhi did resign. Decades later, Yechury was to closely interact with Sonia Gandhi, as one of the pivotal CPM politicians during UPA-1. That the communist party decided to help Congress form a coalition govt after the 2004 general elections, was thanks in no small measure to Yechury’s pragmatism. His thesis that alliance with Congress, for years called the principal class enemy by CPM hardliners, was necessary to take on BJP, has proved durable. CPM is part of the INDIA bloc.
Yechury, born in Chennai to a Telugu Brahmin family, was, in his words, the family’s “first communist”. He was also probably the most articulate of all CPM leaders, a quality that made him the best known communist in Delhi’s political and media circles.
