Delhi, India, September 12 (HBTV): The general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and former member of the Rajya Sabha, Sitaram Yechury has passed away today. He was 72.   

Yechury was admitted to the emergency ward of the AIIMS in Delhi on August 19 for an acute respiratory tract infection, and was later shifted to Intensive Care Unit.

Yechury succeeded Prakash Karat as the general secretary of the CPM in 2015. He was a member of Rajya Sabha from 2005 to 2017. An alumnus of Delhi's St Stephen's College and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Yechury started his political career with the Students' Federation of India and joined the CPIM in 1975. He was pursuing his doctorate in economics from JNU when the Indira Gandhi government imposed the Emergency in 1975. He was arrested along with many other leaders who would later play a key role in national politics. His PhD remained incomplete.