Yechury elected as 5th General Secretary of the CPI(M)

Chandigarh, Rajya Sabha Sita Ram Yechury was today elected as the fifth general secretary of the 50-year old Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the end of party’s 21st Congress held at Vishakhapatnam replacing Parkash Karat.

His name was proposed by Karat and seconded by S Ramachandaran Pillai.

The party’s new Central Committee has 91 members besides five special invitees and five permanent invitees.

Veteran leaders V.S. Achuthanandan, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Nirupam Sen were dropped from the Central Committee.

The election of 62-year-old Yechury came after Pillai, who was reportedly in the fray for the top party post, withdrew, ensuring that the party continued its tradition of electing its leader unanimously.

His election was anno8nced by Karat.. Yechury, who termed the new task as challenging, introduced the 16-member politburo.

The four new politburo members are Mohammed Saleem, Subhashini Ali, Hannan Mollah and G Ramakrishnan.

Subhashini Ali is the second woman in the politburo after Brinda Karat.

The politburo members are Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, S Ramchandran Pillai, Biman Basu, Manik Sarkar, Pinyarayi Vijayan, BV Raghavulu, K Balakrishnan, MA Baby, SK Mishra, AK Padmanabhan, Mohammed Saleem, Subhashini Ali, Hannan Mollah and G Ramakrishnan.

Earlier, the Congress elected the new Central Committee. It approved the names finalised by the outgoing politburo on Saturday night. This was followed by the election of the new politburo and the general secretary by the CC.

Apart from 91 members, the CC has five special invitees and five permanent invitees.
“Our task is to strengthen unity of Left and democratic forces. The unmistakable conclusion of this congress is that the crisis in capitalism continues to deepen in the world. There is no alternative except to strengthen the struggle for socialism. If there is any future for human civilisation, that future lies in socialism,” the 62-year-old CPM leader said.

A former leader of the Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, Yechury was the youngest to be elected to the politburo, the all-powerful body of the party, at the age of 40.