New Delhi: A condolence meeting held at New Delhi’s Talkatora Stadium by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on September 28, 2024, for the Party’s recently deceased General Secretary and former Rajya Sabha member, Sitaram Yechury.

Leaders from various political parties, academics, intellectuals and people from all walks of life attended the meeting, and took turns to pay rich tributes to Yechury, who passed away this September 12 at the age of 72. Each acknowledged the role of a ‘mediator’ that the affable CPI (M) leader played in keeping together the INDIA Bloc.

Congress President Shri Mallikarjun Kharge addressed a packed hall comprising people from all walks of life — “Lal Salaam” sloganeering Left party workers, a solemn bunch of social, political activists and journalists, and Yechury’s family, friends and acquaintances. Kharge gave the Left leader the credit of putting together a united opposition in the form of the INDIA bloc in the run-up to the 2024 general elections. Shri Mallikarjun Kharge was emphatic in stating, “The first meeting of INDIA alliance was held in my residence. The first meeting was with him.” The veteran Congress leader called him the driving force behind the opposition alliance which, by and by, led them to open channels of conversation with other like-minded parties to be able to form an Opposition alliance to take on the BJP.

Congress President, who spoke in Hindi, said, “The one who tried to take credit for the alliance left us overnight and still we took the bloc forward by taking all parties together and the result of it was reflected in the recent general election results when the BJP didn’t get a majority and had to form a minority government.”

Stating that Yechury would not mind late night or early meetings to keep the opposition momentum going, Shri Kharge said, “I saw a quality in him; he never got angry with anyone, was never intolerant with anyone. He would always say, what has happened has happened, what next? He played the role of the mediator, taking everyone together. He helped to keep us united.” The Leader of Opposition (LS) in parliament, Congress’ Shri Rahul Gandhi, too acknowledged the ‘bridge’ that Yechury was in the INDIA alliance. Calling him a ‘friend’-and also saying that he was a better friend of his mother, former Congress President Smt. Sonia Gandhi, than that of him – Shri Rahul Gandhi spoke of Yechury’s qualities. He noted that today’s politicians have anger, aggression and arrogance, which the CPI(M)’s General Secretary didn’t – “a rare thing”.

Shri Gandhi said he had called Yechury Ji when his son passed away during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I just didn’t know what to say, and I was silent, because what he was going through was probably the hardest moment of his life. But I met him a few days later, and the tough and brave Mr. Yechury was back,” Shri Gandhi said. He did not make compromises and worked in the interest of the country, he added.

Calling Yechury politically flexible and a person who “listens even though we came from the opposite spectrum ideologically”, Shri Rahul Gandhi said he became a ‘bridge’ between the Congress Party and other parties of the alliance. He called Yechury the invisible ‘glue’ who held the structure of the alliance and kept its ‘flexible architecture’ alive.

Shri Kharge and Shri Rahul Gandhi’s sentiments echoed among other INDIA alliance leaders. Rashtriya Janta Dal, Samajwadi Party, Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction), DMK, National Conference, Aam Adami Party leaders, Social Reformers and intellectuals were the ones who spoke at the condolence meeting.