Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan's statement that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which had won oneseat in Kerala in the 2016 Assembly polls, would see its account getting closedthis time, has come true with the Centre's ruling party failing to secure anyvictory despite fighting hard in three constituencies.
Vijayan is the 12thChief Minister of Kerala. He is a member of the Politburo of the CommunistParty of India (Marxist). In May 2016, Vijayan won the seat of KeralaLegislative Assembly for the Dharmadom constituency as the CPI(M) candidate. Atthat time, he was selected as the leader of the Left Democratic Front (LDF), andhence became the 12th Chief Minister of the state.
In 1986, he wasappointed as the District Secretary of the CPI(M), as M. V. Raghavan left theparty over the ‘alternative document’ row and three years later he was theState Secretariat of the party. And in 1998 he was at the top position of theparty – Chief Secretary of CPI(M), after the death of incumbent ChadayanGovindan. He is the longest-serving secretary of the Kerala State Committee ofthe CPI(M) from 1998 to 2015. He has served as the Minister of Electricity andCo-operatives from 1996-1998, at this time the state witnessed a vastimprovement in the power supply.
He was elected to theAssembly in 1970, 1977, and 1991 from Kuthuparamba, in 1996 from Payyanur, andin 2016 from Dharmadom.
Election Victories:
In 1970, 1977, and1991 from the Kuthuparamba constituency he won with 743, 4,401, and 12,960votes respectively, in 1996 from the Payyanur constituency he won with 28,078votes, and in 2016 from the Dharmadom constituency he won with a great majorityof around 36,000 votes.
Rough patches of Vijayan’s life:
During the period,when communists in Kerala were organizing the political activities, PinarayiVijayan was sent behind the bars for one and a half years.
During the time ofemergency in the country, Vijayan was arrested and tortured by the cops.
In May 2007, he wassuspended along with V. S. Achuthanandan from the Politburo for their publicremarks on each other, but later Vijayan was reinstated into the Politburo.
Pinarayi vs Controversies:
Pinarayi Vijayan wasone of the accused in Kerala’s first political murder case of VadikkalRamakrishnan who was killed by an axe on 28 April 1969, but the court releasedhim due to lack of evidence.
The major controversywhich showed the involvement of Pinarayi was the SNC Lavalin controversy. In2007, the case was handed over to CBI and Vijayan was the 9th accused in thecase by CBI. In 2013 Vijayan’s name was removed from the list of the CBI.
Recently in 2020,Vijayan faced heat from various opposition leaders after many leaders of CMOwere accused in the 2020 Kerala gold smuggling case.
Vijayan enteredpolitics during his young days, through student union activities at GovernmentBrennen College. And later, he joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) inthe year 1964. Vijayan became the district secretary of the Kerala StudentFederation (KSF) from Kannur. After that, he went on and became the statesecretary and subsequently the state president of KSF. He then switched toKerala State Youth Federation (KSYF).
Vijayan was born on24th May 1945 in Pinarayi village of Malabar district in Madras Presidency. Heearned Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Government Brennen College,Thalassery.