CPM’s Sitaram Yechury arrives in Parliament Thursday. His Rajya Sabha tenure ends this session. Express Photo Renuka Puri
Standing next to CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury in Rajya Sabha, Samajwadi Party MP Ramgopal Yadav became emotional Thursday as he delivered his farewell speech for the Left leader, who is ending his term in Rajya Sabha this session. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley praised Yechury as a “veteran in politics” and for “raising the level of debate” on many occasions. Jaitley recalled his association for about 45 years since their student politics days and said, in a lighter vein, that since Yechury has never served in the government, he had “idealistic but unimplementable” ideas. “Hope this vacuum in his life will be corrected and those idealistic suggestions will become pragmatic.”
Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress) said Yechury was not a just a leader from the party but the country’s leader and described his departure as a “loss”. He even urged him to change the CPM’s constitution, which bars him from being reelected for another term as a Rajya Sabha MP. “Every era has some leaders who are bigger than the party… Sitaram was one of those leaders, who are leaders of this country, and future generations will count him as one of them,” Azad said.
Yadav, who sat next to Yechury, said when the country’s Constitution can be amended, why can’t the Left party’s constitution be amended. Yechury’s name will be remembered in the annals of history, the SP leader said, before he became emotional and ended his speech. Trinamool Congress’s Derek O’Brien, a political rival in Bengal, praised Yechury as he said that even fans of Manchester United soccer team praise a good striker in Tottenham Spur, a rival. He added that ideologically, they may be apart, but O’Brien’s daughter told him that he has started resembling Yechury after having stopped dyeing his hair. Congress’s Jairam Ramesh recalled his association with Yechury, whom he referred to as his “sparring partner” as they both worked on the Common Minimum Programme I (1996) and CMP II (2004). Ramesh said he would always call him Sitaram Obituary — since his party was responsible for the fate of these governments.
Akali Dal’s Naresh Gujral also spoke about Yechury’s knowledge and “razor-sharp intellect”, despite being a political adversary, and called CPM’s decision to deny him another term in Rajya Sabha as another “historic blunder”.
Yechury, in his speech, said his party held the copyright on the concept of “outside support”. Expressing his concern for the “post-truth” world, he said leaders should look at realities like farmers’ suicides and joblessness among youth in the country. Also calling for a “syncretic” India, he cited his own diverse family and background to point out that his son is an Indian, and cannot be labelled as belonging to a particular religion or caste or community. “We are all custodians of India,” he said.
Bandyopadhyay, Pandya
Along with Yechury, D Bandyopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress and Dilip Pandya of the BJP were also bidden farewell by Parliament. While nine members are retiring after the session, six of them including Ahmed Patel and Smriti Irani are back as they have been re-elected. Talking about Bandyopadhyay, a former civil servant, Jaitley said he was impressed with him. About Pandya, he said he was most regular in attending the proceedings. Azad chose the occasion to point out the importance of the Upper House while noting that there had been suggestions from the ruling party to abolish Rajya Sabha. He said a host of stalwarts had been members of the Rajya Sabha and named a number of them, such as B R Ambedkar, Indira Gandhi, H D Deve Gowda, I K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh.
