However, VS would soon be enchanted with the Communist ideology. At the age of 17 in 1940, he was recruited to the Communist Party of India (CPI) by taluk secretary Simon. In 1943, after attending the first state conference of the CPI, VS came under the tutelage of comrade P.Krishna Pillai, who convinced him to plunge full time into the Communist movement.
As a rookie, VS was tasked with setting up communist party units in Kuttanad, and he returned to Alappuzha only after successfully accomplishing that. His role in the 1946 Punnapra-Vayalar uprising remains contested. Notwithstanding that, VS rose through the ranks to become the CPI’s youngest district secretary in 1956. He played an instrumental role in the victory of the CPI in the first election held in Kerala in 1957.
Com. V.S. Achuthanandan was a rare breed of a leader: From the ranks of manual coir workers of Alleppey he rose to become the CM of Kerala. His was a lifelong struggle for social justice, labour rights and land reforms. He is one of the key architects of egalitarian Kerala. pic.twitter.com/iNiUxiIoLK
— Thomas Isaac (@drthomasisaac) July 22, 2025
Achuthanandan was among the 32 leaders to walk out of the CPI national council in 1964 to become a founder-member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI (M). His electoral debut from Ambalappuzha in 1965 ended in defeat. He went on to taste success in the following two elections in 1967 and 1970 from the same constituency, even if he lost in 1977.
When E.K.Nayanar became the CPI (M)’s pick for chief ministership in 1980, Achuthanandan succeeded him as the state secretary, holding on to it until 1992. As secretary, VS was a stickler for rules and held the party together with E.M.S.Namboodiripad when rising star M.V.Raghavan put forth the alternate document in 1985—leading to the Kannur strongman’s expulsion.
VS versus EMS
Achuthanandan’s ideological clarity meant that when Namboodiripad came around to Raghavan’s view on doing business with parties such as Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and the Church-backed Kerala Congress, he steadfastly held on to it.
This was even after he narrowly missed out on being the chief minister in 1991 when Nayanar called for early elections to coincide with the Lok Sabha polls. A consensus was reached to switch the roles of Nayanar and Achuthanandan beforehand. The CPI (M)’s overconfidence was driven by its sweep of the district council polls, but Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination swung that election in favour of the Congress.
VS always found himself at one end of the factionalism in the Kerala unit of the CPI (M) that took root in the early nineties and ebbed and flowed until 2016. It was Achuthanandan’s loss to Nayanar by two votes in the 1991 CPI (M) state conference in Kozhikode that served as a trigger for factionalism to initiate in the Kerala unit of the CPI (M).
While the Cold War officially ended in 1991, another sort of war was brewing between VS and Namboodiripad in Kerala. Even before he officially stood down as the CPI (M) general secretary in 1992, Namboodiripad shifted from New Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram. This created a new power centre and that made VS uneasy, as recounted by Communist ideologue and senior journalist ‘Berlin’ Kunhanandan Nair, in his memoir ‘Polichezhuthu’.
In fact, the loss of Achuthanandan to Nayanar as state secretary was orchestrated by Namboodiripad himself. EMS suggested a couple of changes to the official panel put forth by VS, and that ensured that he lost the majority in the committee. A bitter Achuthanandan tried to get even by handing over a letter to M.Basavapunnaiah which read like a charge sheet against Namboodiripad, as recounted by the then Left convener M.M.Lawrence, in his recently-published autobiography, ‘Ormacheppu Thurakkumbol’.
VS continued to stand firm against the entry of the IUML-splinter Indian National League, even as Namboodiripad was all for it. VS tried to get back at the powerful ‘CITU lobby’ backing Namboodiripad in the CPI (M) state conference in 1995. VS fielded 14 ‘rebels’ against the official panel, but that operation didn’t go entirely according to his script. Lawrence, who led the ‘CITU lobby’, managed to make the state committee by a solitary vote, and that too following a recount, as narrated in his memoir.
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Mararikulam loss & Vetti-nirathal
All these factors contributed to Achuthanandan’s shock loss in Mararikulam in 1996, which thwarted his second shot at chief ministership. In the ensuing CPI (M) state committee, Namboodripad and the CITU faction backed Susheela Gopalan as chief minister. However, VS combined with the ‘Kannur lobby’ to orchestrate Nayanar’s ascension, assisted by Pinarayi Vijayan. But that was hardly a consolation for Achuthanandan, who vowed to decimate the CITU faction.
A showdown was set for the CPI (M) state conference in 1998. Vetti-nirathal (slaughter)–that’s how most vernacular dailies of Kerala described the events that transpired at Palakkad. The term ‘vetti-nirathal’ owed its origin to the anti-reclamation stir launched by the Kerala State Karshaka Thozhilali Union—the CPI (M)’s farm workers’ outfit—under Achuthanandan’s leadership at Kuttanad in 1996-97. The modus operandi involved Marxist cadres going berserk destroying plantain and tapioca crops at will in farms.
The CITU faction was almost entirely culled from the CPI (M) state committee in Palakkad, leading to the losses of veterans Lawrence, K.N.Raveendranath, V.B.Cheriyan and O.Bharathan among others. Namboodiripad took it up with the central leadership, although he passed away in 1998 before the 16th Party Congress that year in Calcutta.
Achuthanandan took over as Left Convener when a humiliated Lawrence stepped down, and his clout within the CPI (M) was at its peak at this point.
Recasting anew
In 2001, the Congress made a comeback, and VS took over as Leader of Opposition (LoP) for a second time. Even before that his loyalists zeroed in on Malampuzha as a safe seat for the veteran. The chant ‘Kanne Karale VS-se’ (VS, our eye-liver-kidney) made its debut during this campaign. The 78-year-old underwent a complete change of image now, resonating with a fresh generation of voters.
Achuthanandan was particularly vocal on gender issues, rights of the marginalised and environment. His anti-corruption crusade complemented it further. Not since A.K.Gopalan earned the sobriquet ‘Pavangalude Padathalavan’ (leader of the poor masses) had a communist leader endeared himself to Kerala’s public so much. However, this phase heralded Achuthanadan’s bitter rivalry with Vijayan, who became another power centre after assuming the role of state secretary in 1998.
The next episode in factionalism tumbled out in public during the Kannur state conference in 2002. This manifested as a clash of ideologies between the Marxist-Leninist ideals represented by VS and the revisionist line of Vijayan. This phase witnessed another realignment within the CPI (M) unit as VS made truce with a weakened CITU faction for outmanoeuvring Vijayan.
Ahead of the Malappuram state conference in 2005, Achuthanandan was supremely confident of replacing Vijayan with his nominee as state secretary, but that was not to be.
Many leaders who professed loyalty to VS switched camps overnight and it was the veteran’s turn to be vanquished. He, however, still held sway over the party in districts like Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta, Kasaragod and Palakkad, even if Alappuzha and Idukki came under Vijayan’s grasp.
His humiliation at the state conference only bolstered his image in public. A section of Kerala’s media, inadvertently or otherwise, played a role in elevating VS as a paragon of virtues, casting Vijayan as the villain of the piece. Vijayan’s arrogant ways did not help his cause either, and this gradually built up to the showdown in 2006 when VS was denied a seat. By then Vijayan had a firm ally in CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat.
In an impromptu expression of solidarity, Marxist cadres took to the streets demanding that VS be fielded. The huge public outcry and fear of electoral setback forced CPI (M)’s hand and the politburo met to overturn the decision.
Achuthanandan was instrumental in getting the central leadership to veto Vijayan’s proposal to ally with the Democratic Indira Congress ahead of that election. Notwithstanding that, the Left’s victory in 2006, registering almost 50 percent vote share, was its most authoritative since 1967.
Vijayan attempted to thwart Achuthanandan’s chief ministership even after the historical win by putting forth the name of Left convener Paloli Muhammed Kutty instead. But, the central leadership backed VS for the post that he missed twice.
That didn’t prevent the state unit under Vijayan from clipping the wings of VS, first by taking the home portfolio away from him and reposing it with the former’s trusted loyalist, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. Even the Vigilance portfolio was also taken away on account of fears that he would settle scores. The party under Vijayan kept the CM on a short leash, even controlling the day-to-day functioning of the government. VS could not even nominate his loyalists as private secretary, and any government file was within Vijayan’s reach.
That did not prevent him from running an efficient administration, and the term was marked by significant legislations of the kind the Left hadn’t undertaken since the ‘80s, including the Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008, a logical conclusion to Achuthanandan-initiated aforementioned Vetti-nirathal.
Meanwhile, factionalism was at its peak after the Kottayam state conference in 2008 when Vijayan at the concluding event shouted at the cadres “to not behave as if Usha Uthup’s music show was underway”, visibly peeved at the sloganeering in favour of VS.
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Denial of mandate in 2011
At the height of factionalism in 2009, VS snubbed the Vijayan-led Nava Kerala March preceding the Lok Sabha elections, until the concluding event held in Thiruvananthapuram. Vijayan’s jibe at VS by likening him to a bucket of water unlike the waves formed in the ocean, was a sharp rejoinder to the veteran. Achuthanandan hit back at Vijayan by drawing comparison with Mikhail Gorbachev and the revisionist practices leading to the Soviet Union’s fall.
When VS publicly disowned Vijayan on the SNC-Lavalin case–going against the state committee’s decision to back Vijayan–it was deemed breach of party discipline, resulting in his removal from the CPI (M) politburo in 2009. Vijayan was spared of any action, with Karat backing the Kannur strongman all the way.
Achuthanandan was never reinstated to the CPI (M)’s highest body. According to the likes of N. Venu, who floated the splinter Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) along with T.P.Chandrasekharan in 2008, VS was flirting with the idea of splitting the party during this phase.
This has also been echoed by the likes of Nair and others who willed VS to chart a new course, but it was a bridge too far for the veteran who bent the rules never to break them. There were overtures also from the CPI but Achuthanandan was always careful of his legacy. VS saw how the likes of K.R.Gowri and Raghavan faded to relative insignificance after charting independent courses.
In 2011, the Achuthanandan government lost the Kerala elections by a wafer-thin margin of 68-72. There have been covert and overt barbs of internal sabotage aimed at Vijayan for that outcome since then, most recently when Achuthanandan’s ministerial colleague G.Sudhakaran conveyed it through a poem in Kalakaumudi weekly.
Achuthanandan got a third term as the LoP, lasting until 2016. His final term as Kerala LoP was no less eventful. The brutal hacking of RMP’s Chandrasekharan, a VS loyalist, in 2012 further widened the rift with Vijayan. When the media sought his comment following the dastardly attack on Chandrasekharan, Vijayan doubled down by stating that “a traitor is always a traitor”.
Notwithstanding the party’s embargo on visiting the slain leader’s home, VS called on Chandrasekharan’s widow K.K.Rema (now, the MLA from Vadakara) and consoled her under the glare of television cameras. That day, 6 June, was a crucial one, as a by-election was underway in Neyyattinkara. VS described Chandrasekharan as a “courageous communist”, unlike Vijayan’s inhuman remark.
By the time the 2014 Lok Sabha election got underway, the dissipation of the VS faction in the Kerala unit was complete, and the Alappuzha state conference in 2015 saw Vijayan’s domination peak.
Walk-out from Alappuzha conference
When a charge sheet listing Achuthananthan’s transgressions was read out by Vijayan while presenting the organisational report, and a number of delegates spoke out against the Marxist veteran in a seemingly orchestrated exercise, VS left the venue in a huff.
He did not return, even after Kodiyeri Balakrishnan–who took over as state secretary in 2015–tried damage control by sending former loyalists S.Sarma and K.Chandran Pillai as emissaries, to pacify him.
Many saw it as symbolic of the parting of ways, but the veteran knew that he wasn’t expendable for the CPI (M) until the 2016 election was won. It also helped that Sitaram Yechury, who always had a soft corner for VS, replaced Karat as the party general secretary.
In 2016, VS led the Left electoral campaign. The party used the 92-year-old as its mascot and, in a way, it was his way of paying back the CPI (M). Fittingly, the Left front registered a resounding 91-seat victory in the 140-member Kerala Assembly.
His aura suffered a jolt when television cameras caught him handing over a note to Yechury at the swearing-in of Vijayan demanding his rehabilitation as chairperson of the Administrative Council with Cabinet rank. The appointment of his son V.A.Arun Kumar as assistant director of The Institute of Human Resources Development (IHRD) during his term as CM was another instance of the veteran failing to walk his lofty talk.
Achuthanandan faded out from the public within a year of Vijayan’s first term, even if he had promised to play the role of a Kavalal, or guard, in 2016. He wasn’t keeping good health and did not campaign in 2019. The stroke VS suffered in 2020 along with the onset of Covid meant that he remained completely cut off from Kerala’s public sphere.
Single-minded pursuit, vengeance
Achuthananthan never adopted a quid pro quo approach to political rivals, and was non-compromising in that respect. The antipathy did not necessarily affect personal equations, but he took the legal route to seek convictions in corruption cases.
It was his personal crusade that ensured the conviction of Kerala Congress stalwart R. Balakrishna Pillai in the Edamalayar case, which, to this date, remains the only conviction of a Kerala politician in a corruption case.
Former Kerala police chief Jacob Punnoose once revealed how Achuthanandan issued a verbal order to the then Crime Branch chief Vinson M.Paul to arrest IUML’s P.K.Kunhalikutty in the Ice-cream parlour scandal on the eve of the 2011 election. Paul had refused to carry out the order pending a written order from the CM.
Like Chanakya’s vow of vengeance, VS was known to exact vengeance on his rivals. He was as much a practitioner of realpolitik in the ‘80s and ‘90s as Pinarayi Vijayan is today. Apart from the infamous culling of the CITU faction, the way he dealt with even minor acts of defiance or indiscipline as state secretary would not tally with the public image that he is bestowed with today.
CPI (M) stalwarts K.Chathunni, M.V.Raghavan, P.K.Chandranandan, P.Govinda Pillai, A.P. Kurian, M.M.Lawrence and even EMS Namboodiripad found themselves at the receiving end of Achuthanandan’s disciplinary sword. It may not have led to political murders, but that is probably because VS hailed from Alappuzha and not Kannur.
Achuthanandan was renowned for tit-for-tat political retorts. When Rahul Gandhi raked up his advanced age in the 2011 poll campaign, VS hit back at the Gandhi scion by dubbing him an ‘Amul baby’. His war of words with Vijayan ran like a political soap opera for a decade.
A theatrical orator, Achuthanandan had an electrifying effect on the audience. People came from far and wide to listen to his speeches. He had developed a distinct style of modulating words and sentences, which he attributed to his legacy of interactions with farm workers in Kuttanad. At the height of factionalism, even leaders firmly aligned to the Vijayan camp sought him out for their electoral campaigns.
VS was a hero of the working class—unlike EMS Namboodiripad, born landlord calling himself the “adopted son of the working class”, or Vijayan, described by ‘Berlin’ Kunhanandan Nair as the “adopted son of the capitalist class”. His reinvention from a hardliner to a mass leader to become a popular chief minister will always remain his abiding memory.
Some politicians live long enough to become a villain or to witness their hard-earned legacy tarnished. In Achuthanandan’s case, it may not be far-fetched to surmise that he hung around long enough to have political sainthood conferred upon him.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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