Sitaram Yechury New CPIM General Secretary

The 21 st Party Congress held at vishakaptanam elected Mr Sitaram Yechurys as its 5th General Secretary . 62 yr old is the most recongizable person in the party who is also a Rajya sabha member from the Westbengal . Yechury, who joined the Students Federation of India (SFI) in 1974 and became a member of the party the very next year, was arrested a few months later during the Emergency. Born on August 12, 1952, Yechury completed school education from Hyderabad and moved to Delhi to complete his graduation in ECONOMICS from St Stephen's College, standing first class first. He did his post-graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University again with a first class, but could not complete his Ph.D degree due to his arrest during Emergency, after having remained underground for some time and organising resistance. After his release, he got elected as President of the JNU Students' Union thrice. In the SFI, he became the All-India Joint Secretary in 1978 and its President soon thereafter. In 1985, Yechury was elected as a member of the Central Committee of the CPIM and then to the Politburo in 1992. He has also headed the party's International Department and been the editor of the party organ 'People's Democracy' for a long time. With his radical views, he played a crucial role in convincing the leaders of the Maoist party in Nepal to join the political mainstream there, using his contacts of the student days. Yechury was elected to Rajya Sabha in July 2005. His powerful speeches in the Rajya Sabha on issues ranging from the plight of the peasantry and the working people and the government's ECONOMIC and foreign policies to the growing threat of communalism, have won much acclaim. He was also the erstwhile CHAIRMAN of the parliamentary standing committee on transport, tourism and culture which brought out several reports on crucial issues. Yechury is married to a journalist and has a daughter and a son from his first marriage.