Former Kerala CM and veteran CPI-M leader V.S. Achuthanandan stable after suffering cardiac arrest

Thiruvananthapuram, June 23 (IANS) Veteran CPI-M leader and former Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, on Monday, after suffering a cardiac arrest was admitted to a hospital here.

He is 101-years-old and has been confined to his room at his son's house here for the past few years.

State CPI-M Secretary M.V. Govindan said that at present the condition of Achuthanandan is stable according to the medical team overseeing his treatment.

Achuthanandan was the Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011 after which he was the Leader of Opposition from 2011 to 2016.

Even though he led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to a huge victory at the 2016 state Assembly polls, he was edged out from the Chief Minister's position by Pinarayi Vijayan.

With the intervention of the national leadership, Achuthanandan was pacified and he was made the Chairman of the Administrative Reforms Committee with Cabinet status.

With age catching up and his health failing, he at the fag end of his tenure as Chairman quit in January 2021 and since then has been confined indoors.

In 1996, when Achuthanandan was all set to become the Chief Minister, he suffered his worst-ever election jolt when he was defeated by a little known Congress candidate P.J. Francis at the former's stronghold at Mararikulam in Alappuzha district.

Francis passed away last week.

After his defeat in 1996, for the next four Assembly elections Achuthanandan moved out of Alappuzha district and contested from Malampuzha in Palakkad district and his last political contest was in 2016.

Since the late nineties, Achuthanandan and Vijayan never had the best of relations and it peaked when the former was the Chief Minister during 2006 to 2011.

His hospitalisation comes at a time when the CPI-M candidate M. Swaraj lost the Nilambur Assembly by-election and more importantly, Swaraj during the standoff between Vijayan and Achuthanandan had said it is time that Achuthanandan should be handed out capital punishment for his tirades.

--IANS

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