Sitaram Yechury

Sitaram Yechury (born 12 August 1952) is an Indian marxist politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and a member of the Politburo of the CPI(M) since 1992.

Sitaram Yechury was born on 12 August 1952 into a Telugu-speaking family in Chennai.

His father Sarveswara Somayajula Yechury lived in Kakinada and 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 studied at All Saints High School, Hyderabad till his tenth standard.

The Telangana agitation of 1969 brought him to Delhi.

He joined Presidents Estate School, New Delhi and achieved the All-India first rank in the Central Board of Secondary Education Higher Secondary Examination.

Subsequently, he studied B.A. (Hons.) in Economics at the St. Stephen's College, Delhi and M.A. in Economics, from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), achieving first class in both.

He joined the JNU for a Ph.D. in Economics, which was aborted with his arrest during The Emergency.

Yechury joined the Students' Federation of India (SFI) in 1974.

A year later, he joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Yechury was arrested in 1975 during the Emergency while he was still a student at JNU.

He went underground for some time, organising resistance to the Emergency, before his arrest.

After the Emergency, he was elected as the President of the JNU Students' Union thrice during one year (1977–78).

Yechury, along with Prakash Karat, was instrumental in creating an impregnable leftist bastion at JNU.

In 1978, Yechury was elected as All-India Joint Secretary of SFI, and went on to become the All India President of SFI.

He was the first president of SFI who was not from Kerala or Bengal.

In 1984, he was elected to the Central Committee of the CPI(M).

In 1985, the party constitution was modified and a five-man central secretariat was elected, consisting of younger stalwarts - him, Prakash Karat, Sunil Moitra, P. Ramachandran and S. Ramachandran Pillai - to work under the direction and control of the politburo.

He left the SFI in 1986.

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 has been playing a pivotal role in building a secular democratic pro-people government since the beginning of his political career.

He has always fought for the fundamental rights of people and believes in "Unity in Diversity".

He has always raised his voice against violence.

Yechury has headed the party's international department and the party used to depute him as fraternal delegate to the party conferences of most socialist countries.

A prolific writer, he has authored many books and writes the fortnightly column Left Hand Drive for Hindustan Times, a widely circulated daily.

He has edited party's fortnightly newspaper People's Democracy for the past 20 years.

Previously, he was a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha from West Bengal from 2005 to 2017.

He succeeded Prakash Karat, who had held the post for three consecutive terms, from 2005 to 2015.

Yechury was elected to Rajya Sabha from West Bengal in July 2005.

He is known for bringing several popular issues to the notice of parliament and for raising questions on important issues.

On blaming by the ruling party for frequent disruptions in parliament, he said that government cannot escape from its responsibility by blaming the opposition for frequent disruptions.

He justifies disruptions in parliament by calling it a legitimate process in a democracy.

During the negotiations for the Indo-US Nuclear Pact, Yechury listed in the Rajya Sabha all the conditions that the CPM required of the agreement.

After the Manmohan Singh government satisfied all the conditions, he was overruled by Prakash Karat, who claimed that the agreement still violated the CPM's idea of "independent foreign policy".

He was then elected to the Politburo at the Fourteenth Congress in 1992 and as the fifth General Secretary of CPI(M) at the party's 21st party Congress in Visakhapatnam on 19 April 2015.

He and politburo member S. Ramachandran Pillai were the frontrunners for the post but the former was unanimously chosen after Pillai chose to withdraw.

He was again re-elected as General Secretary of CPI(M) at the 22nd Party Congress held at Hyderabad during 18 April 2018 to 22 April 2018.

He was elected for a third term as General Secretary of CPI(M) at the 23rd Party Congress held at Kannur, Kerala during April 6, 2022 to April 10, 2022.

Yechury is considered to uphold the coalition-building legacy of former general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet.