CPI(M) gen sec: Former batsman Yechury hits a six

Cricket-lover Sitaram Yechury today hit the ball right out of the park, ensuring a neat victory for his team at the 22nd congress of the CPI(M).

The party's general secretary, once a keen batsman, won the match at the party's mega meet here, successfully pushing what has been called the Yechury line and being re-elected to the post for the second time.

His position that the marginalised Marxist party which now rules only in one state and has a mere 14 members in Parliament should have an understanding with the Congress elbowed out his predecessor Prakash Karat's line that the CPI(M) had to steer clear of the centrist party.

 

Karat's position was supported by the party's central committee, but Yechury had the backing of the majority of delegates, who batted for the 65-year-old leader.

But then Madras-born, Telugu-speaking Yechury has often been described as the true heir to the coalition-building legacy of former general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Like Surjeet, Yechury has maintained ties with leaders in opposition parties, including Congress's former chief Sonia Gandhi.

Fond of Hindi film songs and fluent in several languages, including Bengali, Yechury came to Delhi from Hyderabad when he was in his final year in school -- and ended up topping the board in the 11th standard school-leaving examination.

Like Karat, Yechury excelled in academics. He studied economics and earned a first class in St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and later in his MA at the Left academic citadel, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where he was also elected president of the students' union.

Old-JNU colleagues recall that he had enrolled himself for a Ph.D. in Economics in the university, but could not continue after he was detained during the Emergency in 1975 and went underground.

Yechury, along with Karat, was instrumental in creating an impregnable leftist bastion at the JNU. He was also the tennis captain in the varsity, and a batsman in the university team.

In 1978, he was elected joint secretary of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and later became its president -- the first chief of the students' body who was not from Kerala or West Bengal.

Yechury was 32 when he was made a member of the party's central committee, one of the youngest in what was seen as a party of elder statesmen.

In 1985, the party constitution was modified and a five-man central secretariat elected. Consisting of younger leaders - including Yechury and Karat it worked under the direction and control of the politburo (PB).

Elected to the all-important PB at the 14th congress in 1992, he was named the party's fifth general secretary at the 21st congress in Visakhapatnam in 2015. Karat held the post for three consecutive three-year terms, from 2005 to 2015.

Unlike the quieter Karat, Yechury is vocal and seen to be more approachable, with friends cutting across parties. He worked with P. Chidambaram to draft the common minimum programme for the United Front government in 1996 and had actively pursued the coalition-building process during the formation of the United Progressive Alliance government in 2004.

He was elected to the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal in July 2005 and made his presence felt in the Upper House. An orator who had won many a debate in the JNU, Yechury was one of the more articulate members of the Rajya Sabha.

CPI(M) sources said if the Yechury line had been defeated by Karat's position, he may not have been re-elected. Former Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar and PB member Brinda Karat were said to have been in the reckoning.