I personally know Yechury from 1977 onwards. I met him when I went to Delhi, seeking admission to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). He was then the Students’ Union Chairman there. We shared a close bond since then.

I didn’t get the admission and came back. After five or six months, I was elected as the Chairman of the Kerala University Students’ Union. It was Yechury who guided me in the SFI and we worked closely together during the period (1978-79). His rich experience benefitted me a lot.

We worked together in the SFI central committee from 1980 onwards. Yechury was the SFI national president in the early 1980s, while I was its state president. A Marxist theoretician, Yechury had a strong ideological grounding. I was equally impressed by his ability to explain any complex issues or topics in a simple way that is easily understood by one and all. He was affable and soft-spoken, and one who was revered by leaders across political parties. He co-drafted the Common Minimum Programme for the United Front government in 1996 and played a major role in forming the United Progressive Alliance government in 2004. It was Yechury who brought together the various political parties against the BJP and was the main architect of the INDIA bloc, which gave a strong fight to the ruling NDA in the last Lok Sabha election.

Yechury had a gentle nature but he was a firebrand leader who used to strongly raise his voice on all social issues. For example, Yechury was among the few leaders who strongly condemned the arrest of NewsClick editor Prabhir Purkayastha. Yechury was a distinguished parliamentarian and his performance as a member in the Rajya Sabha for 12 years from 2005 to 2017 was very commendable.

His demise has surely left a void in the party that can never be filled. It’s a big, irreparable loss.