 In 1985, the party constitution was modified and a five-man central secretariat was elected, consisting of younger stalwarts - him, Prakash Karat, Sunil Moitra, P. Ramachandran and S. Ramachandran Pillai - to work under the direction and control of the politburo.He left the SFI in 1986.He was then elected to the Politburo at the Fourteenth Congress in 1992 and as the fifth General Secretary of CPI(M) at the party's 21st party Congress in Visakhapatnam on 19 April 2015.