“Rest in power, Comrade!”: Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) General Secretary, passes away at 72

The veteran Communist leader was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi where he was being treated for a respiratory infection

Taking to social media, many student leaders, including former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar offered their condolences to Yechury’s family and wished peace upon his soul

As a student at JNU, Sitaram Yechury joined the Students’ Federation of India in 1974. The following year, he joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

In 1975, as a student, he was arrested during the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi. Following this arrest, he went underground and organised resistance against the emergency

After the Emergency was lifted, he was elected as the president of the JNUSU three times in one year (1977-78) and helped create a strong left presence in JNU

In what is now considered an iconic act of resistance, Yechury led hundreds of students to the residence of Indira Gandhi, who was the chancellor of all public central universities and read out a memorandum demanding that she step down as the chancellor of JNU in 1977

The following year, Yechury was made the All India President of SFI, and he was the first person who was not from Kerala or West Bengal to hold this post

Yechury succeeded Prakash Karat as the National General Secretary of CPI(M), and assumed the post in 2015

Following his demise, his body has been donated to AIIMS Delhi for science and research