THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the demise of R Balakrishna Pillai, 86, on Monday, all founding leaders of Kerala Congress have become memory. The young Congress leader, who contested to Kerala assembly from Pathanapuram as soon as he turned 25 --- the legal minimum age for filing nomination --- was among the group of 24 MLAs in the Congress led by P T Chacko.
When dissidents in the Congress decided to support opposition’s no-confidence motion against then chief minister R Sankar in 1964, they deputed Pillai to speak in support of the no-confidence motion. Eventually the Sankar ministry was voted out and the 15 Chacko loyalist MLAs who supported the motion broke away from the parent party. They elected an ad-hoc committee led by K M George as chairman and Pillai as general secretary to give final form for a new party, which was later christened Kerala Congress.
The group had the blessings of NSS general secretary Mannathu Padmanabhan. Pillai was a follower of Mannam and his close association with the NSS leadership continued strong till his last breath. When K Karunakaran was the leader of UDF, Pillai acted as the bridge connecting him with the NSS leadership.
Pillai’s record of being the youngest member of Kerala assembly stood in tact for 25 years till Mathew T Thomas broke that in 1987 by only a few days. The leader also holds an interesting record of holding the office of the panchayat president along with his duties as MLA, minister and MP. He was the president of Edamurackal panchayat from 1964 to 1987 and Kottarakara panchayat from 1987 to 1995.
When Pillai had to quit after his ‘Punjab Model’ speech
Pillai had to abandon the panchayat president’s office following the enactment of the Panchayat Raj Act which banned holding of multiple offices simultaneously.The tall leader who is known for his one-upmanship also has a few infamous records to his credit. While serving as the power minister in the Karunakaran cabinet, Pillai had to quit after his ‘Punjab Model’ speech became controversial. He is the only minister who had to quit in Kerala for delivering a controversial speech.
In 1990, the then speaker Varkala Radhakrishnan disqualified him as an MLA after Pillai refused to defect UDF and move to LDF as was done by his party Kerala Congress (Joseph). Pillai is the only MLA in the state who faced disqualification by the speaker.Pillai’s active political career came to an end in 2011, ahead of the run-up to the assembly elections, when he was sentenced to one-year imprisonment in Edamalayar corruption case by the Supreme Court. He had served a nine-month term before being granted remission by the UDF government in November that year.
Earlier, during emergency, Pillai had served a term in the same central prison, Poojappura as a political prisoner. Later, following differences with former CM Oommen Chandy, Pillai defected from the UDF and joined the LDF. A day before his demise, Pillai’s son K B Ganesh Kumar was re-elected from Pathanapuram as an LDF legislator.