ALAPPUZHA: Veteran Communist leader and participant of Punnapra-Vayalar uprising, P K Chandranandan, 89, popularly known as PKC, died here on Wednesday. He had been suffering from age-related ailments for the past few weeks and was undergoing treatment at the Cooperative Hospital, Punnapra.
The body will be kept at the CPM district committee office from 10 am for the public and the party workers to pay homage. The cremation will be held at Valiyachudukad here at 4 pm on Thursday.Chandranandan represented the Ambalappuzha Assembly Constituency from 1980 to 81 and had been the CPM district secretary for more than a decade. He was also a member of the Travancore Devaswom Board. PKC was a volunteer of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising against the royal regime of Travancore and the rule of the then Diwan C P Ramaswamy Iyer to keep the state as an independent entity without joining the Indian Union after Independence. PKC spent 13 years underground and was imprisoned for more than one-and-a-half years during tEmergency.
He had also served as the manager of Deshabhimani daily, the mouthpiece of the party. He is the son of the late P K Kunhan and Parvathy of Edakkara Warriam, Punnapra, Ambalappuzha. He is survived by wife V K Bhadramma, son V C Ashokan (lecturer SD College, Alappuzha) and daughters Usha (Quality Control Manager, McDowell, Cherthala) and Bindhu (Labour Welfare Officer, Titanium, Thiruvananthapuram.