An alumnus Jawaharlal Nehru University, Sitaram Yechury rose to fame in 1970s after he forced the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to resign as the institution's Chancellor. Gandhi had held on to the post despite losing the Lok Sabha polls after Emergency, and hundreds of JNU students led by their union president Yechury, marched to her residence demanding her resignation.
He read out the students' demand, seeking her resignation as JNU Chancellor in her presence as she stood beside him listening. Days later, Gandhi resigned from her post.
The Indira Gandhi incident gave wings to his political career as he went on to become the most popular face of his party, the Coomunist Party of India (Marxist). Until now. he was known for being the most popular face in Delhi.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary and former Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury passed away on Thursday at the age of 72. He was battling a prolonged illness and had been admitted in the intensive care unit of AIIMS, Delhi, where he was receiving treatment for acute respiratory tract infection.
Yechury began his political career as a student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University around 50 years ago. He was pursuing his doctorate in Economic from JNU when the Emergency was imposed in 1975. He was later arrested along with other leaders and his PhD remained incomplete.
After Emergency ended, he was elected as JNU Students' Union President thrice during 1977-78. In 1978, Yechury became the All-India Joint Secretary of SFI and then went on to become SFI's All India President, depsite not being Kerala or Bengal. He quit SFI in 1986 and was later elected to the Politburo, the highest body of the CPI (M), in 1992.
Despite his history with Congress, Yechury formed a strong bond with former Congress president Sonia Gandhi and later with the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. This bond, however, displeased some of the Congress and CPI (M) leaders.
He joined the Students' Federation of India in 1974 and a year later, he became a part of the CPI (M). From there, he worked his way up to becoming the CPI (M) chief in 2015, forging alliance with Congress and other Opposition parties for the first time to form the INDIA bloc in 2023.
He was the first non-Congress leader who was called by Sonia Gandhi after she met President APJ Abdul Kalam in May 2004 before forming the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. She had called him as she wanted to meet the then CPI (M) chief Harkishen Singh Surjeet to inform him that she did not want to become PM.
Yechury had learnt a lot from Surjeet, who played a significant role in the coalition era government at the time of VP Singh's National Front government and later in 1996-97 United Front government. Both of them had CPI (M) support from outside.
Born in Chennai in 1952, Yechury left his studies at Nizam College in Hyderabad to shift to Delhi where he secured all-India first rank in his Class 12 examination in 1970. Thereafter, he studied at St Stephen's College and JNU, where he met Prakash Karat, a fellow communist.
Karat and Yechury, both members of the UPA-Left coordination committee, met frequently to solve differences over the India-US nuclear deal. However, unlike Karat, Yechury did not support Left's idea, leading 60 lawmakers to withdraw support from the Congress-led government in the 543-member Lok Sabha.
In July 2005, he was elected to Rajya Sabha from West Bengal. He was the member of the Upper House till August 2017. During this time, he was succeeded by Prakash Karat, who held the post of CPI (M) general secretary between 2005-2015. In 2018, Yechury was re-elected as CPI (M) general secretary, followed by another term in April 2022.