THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Veteran Marxist leader VS Achuthanandan will turn 96 on Sunday. A true Communist, even at this age, VS continues his tireless fight for the common man. With assembly byelections in five constituencies in Kerala on Monday, the veteran comrade was seen campaigning for the Left even on Friday.
Addressing a campaign rally for CPM’s Vattiyoorkavu candidate V K Prasanth at Kuravankonam, VS yet again proved himself to be the biggest crowd-puller among the Left leaders in Kerala in recent times. Unleashing a scathing attack on the Congress-led UDF and BJP, VS exhorted all those gathered to vote in favour of the Left.
In a three-and-a-half-minute speech, he managed to touch upon almost all topics currently hogging the political limelight in the state now. The frenzied masses who kept on clicking his pictures, hung on to each and every word that he uttered.
A founder leader of CPM, VS is the oldest living Communist in India. He was among the 32 leaders who walked out of the historical CPI national council meet in 1964 to form the CPI(M). VS who began his political career as a trade unionist has been in the forefront of land struggles and was also part of the Punnapra-Vayalar struggle. A former chief minister, he continues to be CPM’s most popular leader in the state, evoking genuine affection among the masses, right down to the grassroot level.
In a way, VS could undoubtedly be termed as a political Houdini of sorts. In January 2017, he once again proved his age-defying skills, when he emerged unscathed at the 10th disciplinary action initiated against him by the party.
The Alappuzha strongman has always had to face scores of disciplinary actions by the very party he had helped form. Public censuring and demotion from the Politburo were just a few of the punitive actions that the nonagenarian has had to face.
It was during the Indo-China war in 1964 that VS was first subjected to party disciplinary action. He was demoted from the Central Committee. Later, he was warned in 1998 and suspended from the Politburo for factionalism in 2007. Though he was taken back keeping in mind his mass appeal, VS had to leave the Politburo again in 2009. But what could be termed as the most drastic of the disciplinary actions against him was the party resolution terming him a “comrade with an anti-party mindset” on the eve of the 2015 Alappuzha conference.
Currently the chairman of the Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission, VS now makes only occasional appearances in the state capital’s trending political space.