• TIMELINE
  • Elected as All India Joint Secretary of SFI in 1978 and went on to become the All India President of SFI.
  • In 1984, he was invited to the Central Committee of the CPI(M).
  • He was arrested for opposing internal emergency in 1975. He was later elected the president of JNU’s students union.
  • Elected to the Central Committee in the CPI(M) 12th Congress in 1985.
  • He was captain of the lawn tennis team in the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
  • Elected to the Central Secretariat at the 13th Congress in 1988.
  • Elected Polit Bureau member at the 14th Congress in 1992.
  • He was elected to Rajya Sabha from West Bengal in July 2005.
  • Elected the fifth general secretary at the party's 21st party Congress in Vishakapatnam on 19 April 2015.
  • Sitaram Yechury and Polit Bureau member S. Ramachandran Pillai were the frontrunners for the post.