TRIBUTE TO YECHURY

Adieu comrade: India pays last respects to Yechury; public homage begins at Delhi AKG Bhavan

New Delhi: Lakhs of people have started to flow to AKG Bhavan here on Saturday to pay homage to veteran CPM leader and party's national general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday. The CPM national committee has announced that the leader's body will be kept at the AKG Bhavan, the national headquarters of the party, here for public homage between 11 am and 3 pm on Saturday.

Kerala CPM leaders, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, M V  Govindan, M A Baby, E P Jayarajan, ministers P Rajeeve, P A Mohammad Riyas, M B Rajesh and A Vijayaraghavan reached AKG Bhavan on Saturday morning. The ambulance carrying Yechury's body reached the party headquarters around 10.15 am on Saturday. Later, CPM politburo members, including Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, Pinarayi Vijayan and M A Baby, draped the party's red flag on the mortal remains of the comrade.

In the visuals aired on TV channels, CPM activists were seen chanting 'Lal Salaam' and 'Red Salute' when the ambulance carrying Yechury's mortal remains reached the party headquarters. The public homage at AKG Bhavan witnessed emotional scenes as more senior politicians reached out to pay tributes to Yechury.

After the public homage, his body will be taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi where it will be donated for medical research as per his wishes. A mourning procession will be held from AKG Bhavan to Ashok Road by noon.

Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi also reached the AKG Bhavan along with the other party leaders to pay her last respects to Yechury.

He was the first non-Congress leader Gandhi called after she met then president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in 2004 when she turned down the prime minister's post and rallied for Dr Manmohan Singh, an equation that survived the shock withdrawal of support by the Left to the UPA in 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh also paid their last respects to the departed soul at the CPI (M) headquarters. NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar and RJD MP Manoj Jha as well paid homage to Yechury.

On Friday, politburo members and senior leaders paid tributes to the leader at his residence in New Delhi. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, state secretary of the party M V Govindan, MP John Brittas and BJP national president J P Nadda also reached there and offered condolences to the grieving family members. His body was also kept at the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union office, where hundreds of students and faculty members paid tribute to him.

As a student at JNU, Yechury joined the Students Federation of India (SFI) in 1974 and was arrested a few months later during the Emergency. He served as the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) thrice in 1978. Yechury was elected as the All-India Joint Secretary of SFI in 1978 and later became its All-India President.

When he became SFI president in 1978, he was the first person who did not belong to either West Bengal or Kerala to occupy the post.

The CPM general secretary died on Thursday at a hospital here after battling a lung infection. Yechury, 72, was in critical condition for the last few days and on respiratory support while undergoing treatment for an acute respiratory tract infection at the ICU in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). He was admitted to the hospital on August 19.

Yechury was married to journalist Seema Chisti, the editor of The Wire and formerly the Delhi editor of BBC Hindi Service. The couple had two children, Akhila Yechury and the late Ashish Yechury. He was earlier married to Indrani Mazumdar.
(with PTI inputs)