Sitaram Yechury

Sitaram Yechury (born 12 August 1952) is an Indian politician and a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the leader of the party's parliamentary group. He was elected as the General Secretary on 19 April 2015. He was awarded the Best Parliamentarian Award in Rajya Sabha in 2016.

Sitaram Yechury

Sitaram Yechuri

General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist),

Born12 August 1952

Chennai, Tamil NaduPolitical PartyCommunist Party of India (Marxist)

Sitaram Yechury was born on 12 August 1952 in Madras (Chennai) to a Telugu-speaking Brahmin[1] family.[2] His father Sarveswara Somayajula Yechury was an engineer with the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation.[3] His mother Kalpakam Yechury was a government official.[4] He grew up in Hyderabad and studied at All Saints High School, Hyderabad till class 10.[5] The Telangana movement of 1969 brought him to Delhi.[4] He attended President's Estate School, New Delhi and secured an all-India first rank in the Central Board of Secondary Education Higher Secondary examination. He then studied for B.A. (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi and then did his M.A. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University.  Sitaram had enrolled in Jawaharlal Nehru University to pursue a PhD in Economics, but his studies were put on hold after his arrest during the Emergency.

In 1974, Yechury joined the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and a year later became a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

While a student at JNU during the Emergency, he was arrested for organising a clandestine protest against the Emergency. Following the Emergency and his release, Yechury was elected leader of the JNU students' body three times in a single year.

In 1978, Yechury became the All-India joint editor of the Students' Federation of India and later the All-India president of the SFI. He was the first president who was not from Kerala or West Bengal.[6]

In 1984, he was inducted into the CPI(M) Central Committee. A year later, the party's constitution was amended and a five-member central editorial board was elected.  Yechury was in this group and along with him Prakash Karat, Sunil Moitra, P. Ramachandran, S. Ramachandran Pillai were elected. This editorial group will work under the party's Politburo.