Former Kerala Chief Minister and veteran Communist leader V.S. Achuthanandan passed away at the age of 102, leaving behind a legacy of revolutionary memories. He died on Monday at 3:20 PM at the Ananthapuri Hospital (SUT), Thiruvananthapuram, where he was under intensive care following a cardiac arrest.
Despite efforts to stabilize his condition using life-support systems that maintained his breathing, blood pressure, and kidney functions, his condition remained critical. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Health Minister Veena George, and CPI(M) State Secretary M.V. Govindan had visited him during his final days.
The funeral will be held on Wednesday at Valliyachudukad, in Alappuzha.
V.S. Achuthanandan was the last surviving founding leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M). In 1964, he was among the 32 national leaders who broke away from the Communist Party of India (CPI) to form the CPI(M). He was one of the seven delegates from Kerala involved in that historic split.
He served as the 11th Chief Minister of Kerala from 2006 to 2011, assuming office at the age of 83, making him the oldest person ever to become Kerala’s Chief Minister.
Achuthanandan was born on October 20, 1923, in Venalthara, Punnapra, in Ambalapuzha taluk of Alappuzha district, to Shankaran and Akkamma. He had three siblings: Gangadharan, Purushothaman, and Azhikutty. His formal education ended in the seventh grade, after which he worked in a coir factory and later in a textile shop.
He joined the State Congress in 1940 at the age of 17 and became a member of the Communist Party the same year, marking the beginning of a remarkable political journey that spanned over eight decades.
