Tag: CPM

Sitaram Yechury, who died on Thursday, was party politically a committed communist but in political praxis — to use a term much favoured by Marxist pundits — he favoured pragmatism over dogma. And like many pragmatic politicians of his generation, he was courteous and amiable, qualities that didn’t depend on which side of the aisle his interlocutor belonged to.He was among the few CPM leaders who didn’t ideologically over-analyse whether the party should ally with Congress, earlier identified as communists’ chief adversary, to take on BJP when the latter became a governing party under Vajpayee’s leadership.During the 2024 campaign, he insisted Modi-led BJP should be taken on in state-by-state contests, via alliances. An analysis partly borne out by results. Interestingly, CPM’s ideological...