Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan, popularly known as VS, one of the most iconic figures of Kerala, turns 94 today. Former chief minister and founder leader of the communist party of Kerala is known for his ideological rigidity. He entered politics through trade union activities from Kuttanadu and joined State Congress in 1938. In 1940, he switched parties and joined the Communist Party of India (CPI). During his 40 years as a politician he was imprisoned for five years and six months and was in hiding for four and half years.
He is a spirited warrior and a very stubborn ruler, often showing integrity in occasions that would warrant the exact opposite.
Achuthanandan faced the first disciplinary action within two years of the formation of the party in 1964. Branded as a Chinese stooge, he was jailed along with other communist leaders in the backdrop of the war with China. Achuthanandan, a member of the central committee and the state secretariat, mooted a plan to donate blood for the Indian soldiers and contribute to the national security fund. The initiative did not go well in the party, which expelled Achuthanandan from the state secretariat in December 1966.
He was accused of standing in the way of the 1988’s LDF Government by supporting the Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad’s campaign against hydropower system and nuclear energy. He also faced an action in 1998 along with E Balanandan and M A Baby, for the factional activities in the run-up to the party’s state conference at Palakkad.
Controversies followed Achuthanandan even after he was sworn in as Chief Minister. The CPM publicly censured its chief minister in 2007 for criticizing the functioning of fellow ministers T M Thomas Isaac and Paloli Muhammed Kutty in relation to a loan from the Asia Development Bank. Later that year, he was suspended from the politburo along with state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan for their bitter fight for the control of the party. The two top comrades were in a public slanging match.
Achuthanandan’s opinion on sensitive issues like the sale of lotteries in Kerala, support to a movement against a nuclear plant at Koodamkulam in Tamil Nadu, SNC-Lavalin case, in which many party frontiers are facing allegations was treated as a threat to the party and he was publicly warned and expelled from the party. Recently the CPM central committee censured Achuthanandan in January 2017 for his recurring breach of party discipline. He was accused of violating the organizational principles of the party.
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