Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy’s battle with history: Rising from CPI ranks to steering it amid decline

Reddy was a pragmatic politician who rose from student politics. He did not possess the charm or charisma of Bardhan. He was also not outspoken or media-savvy. And he took charge of the CPI’s leadership at a difficult time. For the Left bloc had slumped then, years after recording its best-ever Lok Sabha performance in 2004, which ensured that it emerged as a major political force and an architect of the Congress-led UPA-I government.

The Left parties, which had together won 59 seats in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, had plunged to 24 in 2009. Reddy wanted to expand his party’s base in the Hindi heartland and make the CPI assert its independence and not remain just an adjunct to the CPI(M). But the political tide was not in their favour. The tenure of the UPA-2 government, during which it was buffeted by corruption scandals and charges of policy paralysis, triggered a yearning for change.

And it was not just the Congress, which was decimated in the Narendra Modi wave, the Left too suffered, as did many other anti-BJP parties. The Left crashed to 10 seats in 2014 and 5 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Reddy bowed out of the CPI general secretary’s post after the party’s worst-ever defeat in the 2019 elections — when it managed to win only 2 seats — citing health reasons, almost two years ahead of completing his third term as the party chief. He took an early retirement.

Reddy was re-elected twice as the CPI general secretary after 2012 — at Puducherry Party Congress in 2015 and later at Kollam Party Congress in 2018.

A two-time Lok Sabha MP, Reddy was a quintessential organisational man but could do little to turn around his party’s fortunes. The Left continued its decline even after his exit. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections too, the Left could not make an impact. The CPI again could win just two seats, that too in Tamil Nadu with the support of the DMK. The CPM managed to win four – two in Tamil Nadu and one each in Kerala and Rajasthan.

A law graduate from the Osmania University, Reddy was a practical politician. He was attuned to the ground realities unlike many of his peers in his party and the larger Left alliance. But history and time were not on his side. Reddy had entered national politics early. In the second half of the 1960s – after the split in the undivided CPI – he had shifted to Delhi as the general secretary of the All India Students Federation (AISF). He learnt the ropes from party heavyweights such as C Rajeswara Rao and S A Dange. He soon became the president of the AISF and then went on to head the CPI’s youth wing AIYF.

Reddy became a member of the CPI National Council as early as in 1971 and the next three decades saw him emerging as one of the top CPI leaders in undivided Andhra Pradesh. That he would be successor to Bardhan became clear in 2008 itself when he was elevated as the deputy general secretary. He had a four-year-long grooming by a stalwart like Bardhan himself.

Reddy represented Nalgonda Lok Sabha constituency in 1998 and 2004. It was under his leadership that the CPI in Andhra Pradesh launched a massive agitation in the Telangana region, which culminated in the Warangal Declaration in 2000 for a separate Telangana state. As the CPI’s state secretary, he managed to convince the central leadership and his comrades in Andhra that supporting a separate Telangana demand was in its interest.

Mourning Reddy’s demise, the CPI, in a statement, said: “From his formative years as a school student in Kurnool, where he led his classmates in a strike for blackboards and chalk, to his days as Students’ Union General Secretary at Osmania University Law College, Reddy’s instinct for mobilisation and leadership was evident early. Twice elected as General Secretary of the AISF… he led historic 62-day nationwide strikes demanding hostels, scholarships and welfare measures, and faced repeated imprisonment for his role in student struggles. As President of the AIYF in 1972, he spearheaded the campaign that won voting rights for youth at the age of 18, through the 61st Constitutional Amendment— leaving an indelible mark on India’s democratic process.”

As the CPI general secretary, the party said, Reddy “re-energised the organisation, emphasising cadre education, mass-organisation building, and united-Left action against communalism and authoritarianism. Under his stewardship, the party recorded its most significant growth in membership and in youth and women’s wings since the 1990s”.

“A commanding orator in Telugu, Hindi and English, as well as a prolific writer of essays, pamphlets and books, Comrade Reddy combined ideological clarity with accessibility, making Marxism understandable to new generations,” the CPI added.

Delhi