Hours after CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury's death, his family members decided to donate his body to AIMS Delhi for teaching and research purposes, the hospital said in a statement. Sitaram Yechury, 72, was admitted to AIIMS on 19 August 2024 due to pneumonia and passed away on 12 September 2024 at 3:05 pm. Yechury had been in a critical condition for the last few days and was on respiratory support.
On 14th September the body of Comrade Sitaram Yechury will be kept at the Communist Party of India (Marxist) headquarters, A.K. Gopalan Bhavan, Gole Market, New Delhi for public viewing and paying homage between 11.00 AM and 3.00 PM. Subsequently the body of Comrade Sitaram Yechury will be taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), where it will be donated for medical research as per his wishes, the CPI(M) Central Committee office said in a statement.
The CPI(M) had said earlier that the 72-year-old leader was being treated for an acute respiratory tract infection at the ICU in AIIMS, Delhi.
He was critical and on oxygen support. The sources told news agency PTI that he had a fungal infection in his lungs.
The leader, who started from the student's union of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as a member of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) and went on to become a member of the Central Committee of the CPI(M) in 1984, got elected to the Politburo in 1992.
He served as a Rajya Sabha MP for 12 years, from 2005 to 2017. He became the fifth general secretary of the CPI(M) at the 21st party congress in Visakhapatnam on April 19, 2015, and took over from Prakash Karat.
He also played a significant role in the joint opposition's INDIA bloc. He was seen among the political mentors of Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.
