Sitaram Yechury has been re-elected as the general secretary of the CPIM-Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Sunday in the 23rd Party Congress held in the Kannur district of Kerala. Yechury was chosen to hold the top post in the party by an 85-member new Central Committee that was elected at the Party Congress.

Yechury was first elected to the post on April 9, 2015, during the 21st Party Congress held in the Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Yechury was re-elected as general secretary of CPI-M in the 22nd Party Congress held in Hyderabad in 2018. He succeeded Prakash Karat, who had held the highest post in the communist party for three consecutive terms from 2005 to 2015.

As the newly re-elected general secretary, his main responsibility would be to revive the party, which has been on a steady decline in the past few years. Currently, CPI (M) Government is only present in 3 states, i.e., Kerala, Jharkhand, and Tamil Nadu. Yechury, during the event, said that the party is giving priority to regional alliances with an aim to weaken Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP).

“CPI(M) was ready for electoral alliances with secular parties. He said the party was giving priority to regional alliances with the aim of weakening the BJP in all the states,” says the newly elected CPIM General secretary. The 85-member new CPIM Central Committee consists of 17 new cadres and 15 women, while the 17-member Politburo has 3 new entrants.

The 17 newly elected members of the Politburo are  Md Salim, Surjya Kanta Mishra, Prakash Karat, Pinarayi Vijayan, Sitaram Yechury, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Brinda Karat, Manik Sarkar, BV Raghavulu, Tapan Sen, Nilotpal Basu, M A Baby, Dr. Ashok Dhawale, A Vijayaraghavan, G Ramakrishnan, Subhashini Ali and Ramchandra Dome. The CPI (M) 23rd Congress was held in the district of Kannur in Kerala from 6 to April 10.