You simply can’t keep this survivor out

V S Achuthanandan | 88
They call him the "great survivor". Decades into his career in the CPM, in 2006 and this time, his party leaders decided to keep him out of the polls. On both occasions, they had to reverse their decision.
A recent TV survey gave him an approval rating of more than 30% — highest among the state’s chief minister hopefuls. He has it in him to galvanize the Left Democratic Front’s campaign.He says communists never retire but given his health worries, 2011 could well be his sign-off electoral joust. Born on October 20, 1923, in Alappuzha, Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan always had odds stacked against him. He lost his mother at four and father seven years later.
VS dropped out of school after Class VII and began helping his brother at a cloth shop at their native village.
Later, he joined the Aspinwal Coir Factory. Poor work conditions there gave birth to the activist in VS. He became a trade unionist. Achuthanandan met late comrade P Krishna Pillai, who became his mentor.
Pillai assigned him the task of organizing farmers in Alappuzha. In 1938, VS joined Congress, quit two years later and crossed over to the undivided CPI. He was one of the 32 to walk out of the CPI National Council in 1964 and form CPM. VS backed the nationalists in the war against China in 1962. The party demoted him for joining a blood donation camp for Indian soldiers. VS was CPM state secretary between 1980 and 1992 and inducted into the politburo in 1985. In 1998, he and Pinarayi Vijayan joined hands against the ‘Citu lobby’. VS took pains to prop Vijayan as party secretary in 1998 to realise his blunder years later.
By 2005, Vijayan had moved into his own orbit and at the party state conference in Malappuran, ensured that none of VS's nominees made it to the state committee.
Their differences touched a low when the state committee decided against fielding VS in the 2006 polls. But his image led to public protests, forcing the party to relent.