CPI(M) Struggles After Yechury's Passing

Without Yechury, CPI(M) Loses Its Best Coalition Broker

M.A. Baby controls the party machine, but Sitaram Yechury’s death left the Indian Left with less leverage in Delhi and inside anti-BJP coalitions.

The power shift is inside the opposition, not inside parliament. Sitaram Yechury’s archive at Hindustan Times is a reminder that the late CPI(M) leader was not just a party ideologue but a national message-setter, using mainstream platforms to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politics directly Read all stories from Sitaram Yechury - Hindustan Times. Since Yechury’s death in September 2024, the CPI(M) has moved to institutional continuity by electing M.A. Baby as general secretary at its 24th Party Congress in Madurai in April 2025 Bihar polls will be the first test of the call to defeat BJP: CPI(M)’s M.A. Baby - The Hindu.

Why Yechury mattered beyond the Left

Yechury’s real leverage was not electoral scale. It was brokerage. He gave the CPI(M) something rare in Delhi: a leader acceptable to party cadre, intelligible to television audiences, and usable by broader anti-BJP formations. That matters in a fragmented opposition system, especially in a country where the Left’s national footprint has shrunk even as its organizational utility remains high in states like Kerala and in alliance arithmetic elsewhere.

The evidence for that role is now clearer in retrospect. Senior CPI(M) leader M.A. Baby said there was only one time Yechury overruled the party’s diktat — a revealing detail because it shows Yechury’s value lay in disciplined flexibility, not freelancing M.A. Baby reveals the only time when Sitaram Yechury overruled CPI(M)’s diktat - The Hindu. That is the kind of authority coalition politics rewards.

This is why the post-Yechury CPI(M) faces a narrower choice set. Baby has kept the party on a familiar line — broad unity to defeat the BJP, with Bihar framed as the first major test after the 2025 congress Bihar polls will be the first test of the call to defeat BJP: CPI(M)’s M.A. Baby - The Hindu. But Baby’s own explanation of why the party opposes the NEP 2020 nationally while implementing parts of it in Kerala suggests a more managerial, state-grounded politics than Yechury’s Delhi-facing coalition craft Hypocrisy or pragmatism? M.A. Baby on why CPM opposes NEP 2020 nationally but implements many aspects of it in Kerala - The Hindu.

Who gains, who loses

The BJP gains indirectly. It loses a critic, but more importantly the opposition loses a negotiator. Regional INDIA bloc parties now face one less trusted Left intermediary in Delhi. M.A. Baby gains internal authority, but inherits a harder job: preserving CPI(M)’s relevance without Yechury’s personal access across party lines.

For more on this wider India and international political context, the key point is simple: the CPI(M) still has organization, but less brokerage.

What to watch next

Watch Bihar’s assembly election cycle as the first hard test of the CPI(M)’s post-Yechury strategy and watch whether Baby can turn calls for anti-BJP unity into durable seat-sharing discipline Bihar polls will be the first test of the call to defeat BJP: CPI(M)’s M.A. Baby - The Hindu. The next signal is whether CPI(M) can still shape national opposition coordination on issues like census and delimitation, where Baby has already pushed for an all-party meeting CPI(M) calls for all-party meet on modalities of census - The Hindu. If it cannot, Yechury’s real successor will not be a person. It will be a vacuum.