Sitaram Yechury is new general secretary of CPI-M

Visakhapatnam, April 19:

The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Sunday elected Sitaram Yechury as the new general secretary of the party.

At the meeting of the Central Committee, outgoing general secretary Prakash Karat proposed Yechury’s name and S.R. Pillai seconded it.

The 91-member CC unanimously approved it.

Prakash Karat later made the formal announcement before the media. Yechury also introduced a 16-member politburo.

The four new politburo members are Mohammed Saleem, Subhashini Ali, Hannan Mollah and G. Ramakrishnan.

Subhashini Ali is the second woman in the politburo after Brinda Karat.

The politburo members are Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, S. Ramchandran Pillai, Biman Basu, Manik Sarkar, Pinyarayi Vijayan, B.V. Raghavulu, K. Balakrishnan, M.A. Baby, S.K. Mishra, A.K. Padmanabhan, Mohammed Saleem, Subhashini Ali, Hannan Mollah and G. Ramakrishnan.

Earlier, the Congress elected the new CC. It approved the names finalised by the outgoing politburo on Saturday night. This was followed by the election of the new politburo and the general secretary by the CC.

Apart from 91 members, the CC has five special invitees and five permanent invitees. (IANS)