Kerala receives news of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s passing with shock, sorrow and disbelief 

Passing of CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury mourned by political leaders across Kerala, hailed for his leadership and intellect.

The passing of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, 72, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi on Thursday (September 12, 2024) sent shockwaves of sorrow and disbelief across every corner of Kerala’s political and social spectrum. 

As a mark of respect, CPI(M) offices across the State flew the party flag at half-mast. CPI(M) workers raised a black flag in front of the party’s State headquarters at the AKG Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. 

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan remembered Yechury as a seasoned communist leader who elicited the respect of the party’s detractors through his studied, gentlemanly, refined and insightful approach to politics.

Mr. Vijayan said Yechury guided the CPI(M) through difficult political situations during his nine-year term as the party’s general secretary. He termed Yechury’s passing a personal loss. 

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan described Yechury as an astute politician not limited by ideological shackles. Without losing his communist moorings, Yechury successfully guided the CPI(M) through dire straits of realpolitik in a highly challenging socio-political era. Mr Satheesan said Yechury realised Congress’s historical role in leading the country out of the divisive political morass spawned by the BJP-RSS regime early. 

CPI State Secretary Binoy Viswam fondly remembered his decades-long personal and political association with Yechury. “He was an avid reader, an ardent smoker and a brilliant conversationalist. Pleasantness was the hallmark of Yechury’s character. The general secretary was also a Marxist intellectual who could wield ideology and practical politics with equal ease”, Mr. Viswam said. 

Left Democratic Front (LDF) convenor, T.P. Ramakrishnan, said Yechury was the party’s ideological lodestar. He said the CPI(M) central committee, bowing to Yechury’s wishes, would donate the leader’s body to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where he died under medical care for acute respiratory tract infection.