New Delhi: Veteran Left leader and CPI-M (Communist Party of India-Marxist)general secretary Sitaram Yechury died on September 12. He was 72 and was undergoing treatment for respiratory ailments at Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
He was admitted to the emergency ward of AIIMS on August 19 and later shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He was suffering from a pneumonia-like infection, but doctors had not disclosed the exact nature of the ailment.
A member of CPI-M's top decision-making body Politburo for over three decades, Yechury was a Rajya Sabha MP from 2005 to 2017. An alumnus of Delhi's St Stephen's College and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Yechury started his political career with the Students' Federation of India and joined the CPI-M in 1975.
He had also played a critical role in the talks with the government on the Indo-US nuclear deal that led to the Left parties withdrawing support to the then government because of a party leader's stubborn stand.
