Comrade Kerala CPM grudgingly loved

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: “The collective wisdom of the party will prevail,” was how he responded, nearly a decade ago, as he arrived at Vizag airport to attend CPM’s 21st Party Congress that later elected him as its leader in the most challenging and turbulent period in its 60 years of existence. Over a period, he did succeed in showing party colleagues and comrades as to what he had meant by CPM’s collective wisdom.

Sitaram Yechury was one of those political leaders endowed with the rare combination of ideological commitment and practical wisdom.

A stalwart Marxist leader of the 21st century, he remained a key strategist for not just the Left, but the entire spectrum of the Opposition coalition, especially during the Narendra Modi regime, when he carved out a niche for himself in the Rajya Sabha.

Embodying CPM’s pleasant face, Yechury was also a pragmatic leader and a major proponent of electoral understanding with the Congress, as he felt defeating the BJP was of utmost importance. In an era when Left politics had fewer takers nationally, Yechury displayed uncanny clarity on the tactical political line CPM should toe to stay relevant in the country’s current political scenario.

It was this tactical line that made Yechury a leader loved and hated by Kerala CPM. Limited to an increasingly shrinking space where it held power, the Kerala party took a long time to realise the looming saffron threat.

Yechury had identified BJP as CPM’s bête-noire long back. It, however, took many years for the Kerala party to finally comprehend the point Yechury was trying to drive home, before the party assented to go in for a tactical understanding with other like-minded secular forces.