Sitaram Yechury, a prominent figure in Indian politics and leader of the country’s largest communist party, has passed away at 72. He had been receiving treatment for an acute respiratory tract infection at a hospital in Delhi, where he was admitted on 19 August.
As general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), Yechury played a pivotal role in shaping Indian politics for decades. Tributes have poured in from various political figures, including opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and former rival Mamata Banerjee.
Yechury began his political journey as a student leader with the Student Federation of India, a left-wing organization. He was arrested during the Emergency in 1975, a period when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's Congress government significantly restricted civil liberties. After his release, he pursued economics at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and became the university's president.
Yechury was particularly influential during the peak of coalition politics in India, when the country's federal governments often required the support of diverse political parties. In 1996, he was instrumental in forming a coalition of 13 parties, which governed India for nearly two years under two prime ministers—HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral.
In 2004, his party achieved a historic victory, winning 44 parliamentary seats. The Left parties, including the CPI(M), supported the Congress-led government from the outside, meaning they supported it without taking ministerial positions. However, in 2008, they withdrew their backing in protest against the Indo-US nuclear deal, a move that was controversial and led to declining electoral fortunes for the Left.
By 2015, when Yechury became the general secretary of the CPI(M), the party had lost many of its strongholds, including West Bengal, and its influence in parliament was waning. Yechury served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of parliament, from 2005 to 2017.
Rahul Gandhi, who shared a close relationship with Yechury, paid tribute by calling him a "friend" and praising his deep understanding of India. Mamata Banerjee, whose party ended the Left’s 34-year rule in West Bengal in 2011, called his death "a loss for national politics."
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