Kolkata, Sep 13 (IANS): Following the demise of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, speculation is rife on who could be his successor.

The first question is whether any acting general secretary is elevated to the post and who can continue till the 24th party Congress at Madurai in Tamil Nadu in April next year, or whether anyone from the politburo is finalised for that chair by the central committee.

“As it is Sitaram was supposed to be replaced at the Madurai party Congress. He would have completed his third term as the party general secretary by then. He could have played an important role in finalising the next face as his successor. So there is the question of who will be mandated to continue with the task till the next party Congress,” said a central committee member of the party from West Bengal who did not wish to be named.

The second question is about the selection of his successor who can emerge as an accepted face as a mediator in the national-level non-BJP alliance partners in the coming days, a sphere where Yechury became highly successful as was evident in the last Lok Sabha elections.

The question about Yechury’s success is, especially, important for the party’s West Bengal leadership as the latter is worried whether the new face will endorse the state unit’s independent line of state-level seat-sharing arrangements with Congress which Yechury had always endorsed even going against the state leadership elsewhere.

“Sitaram’s absence at this moment is a major shock not only for the party as a whole but for the state leadership in West Bengal. He had always given special importance to our state-specific line even in the face of opposition from the state leadership elsewhere,” the central committee member from West Bengal said.

Being a liberal Marxist, like his mentor and former party general secretary Late Harkishan Singh Surjit and the former nonagenarian West Bengal Chief Minister Late Jyoti Basu, Yechury had been always open about accepting the party’s Bengal-line logic of an understanding with Congress at the state level against the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Because of the initiatives of Yechury and another former West Bengal Chief Minister Late Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the foundation stone for the Left Front-Congress seat-sharing agreement in the state was laid before the 2016 Assembly elections, which was continued in 2021 and the last Lok Sabha elections.

It was because of his liberal views of Yechury that the West Bengal unit of the CPI(M) could continue with the arrangement with Congress in the state despite the two parties being arch-rivals in Kerala.