Thiruvananthapuram: In the long and tumultuous political life of V.S. Achuthanandan, who rose from the shores of Punnapra in Alappuzha to become one of India’s tallest communist leaders, an unusual thread runs through his electoral map a sequence of place names tied to water bodies. The poetic coincidence? The five major constituencies that defined his political journey all bear names derived from either ‘puzha’ (river) or ‘kulam’ (pond). Three rivers. Two ponds. A legacy rippling through political currents.
It all began not with his own candidacy, but with his strategic brilliance. In 1957, when the first Communist government took office in Kerala, Alappuzha district was its bastion. Of the 14 seats in the district, 10 were swept by independent candidates backed by the CPI. As district secretary of the party, VS was entrusted with managing the state’s first-ever by-election in Devikulam. His tactics led to Rosamma Punnoose’s emphatic win, proving VS’s mettle and marking his first electoral imprint at a place ending in ‘kulam’.
His first personal foray into electoral waters came in 1965 from Ambalapuzha, his native terrain, and a name that carries the river (‘puzha’) in its title. But the tides weren’t in his favor. He lost to Congress stalwart K.S. Krishnakurup by a narrow 2,327 votes. The Assembly never convened that term, but in 1967, VS reclaimed Ambalapuzha with a sweeping margin of 9,515 votes. He repeated the feat in 1970, but the 1977 elections saw a reversal he lost to RSP’s K.K. Kumarapillai by 5,585 votes. The river that had brought him into legislative waters now swept him back to the party office.
In 1991, after a hiatus of 14 years, VS re-emerged in Mararikulam, another ‘kulam’ constituency. It proved fruitful initially he won with a resounding margin of 9,980 votes and later became Leader of the Opposition. But in 1996, a shock awaited him. A little-known Congress candidate, P.J. Francis, edged past VS by 1,965 votes. It wasn’t just a loss; it was a betrayal. Party investigations later revealed an internal sabotage. Ironically, this defeat would elevate VS’s stature within the party as a symbol of resilience and principle.
Having been bruised in the ponds, VS shifted terrain this time to the mighty Malampuzha, a river constituency in Palakkad district. In 2001, despite Malampuzha being a traditional Marxist stronghold, his majority shrank to just 4,703 votes, thanks to a spirited challenge by Congress’s Satheesan Pacheni. Yet this narrow escape propelled him to new heights. He became the Leader of the Opposition and, within five years, transformed into Kerala’s most loved mass leader.
In 2006, VS achieved sweet revenge he crushed Pacheni with a 20,017-vote margin and assumed the Chief Minister’s seat. The wave only grew larger: in 2011, he won by 23,440 votes. In 2016, as BJP emerged as a stronger adversary, VS still secured a historic win, with a commanding margin of 27,142 votes. Malampuzha, the river constituency, became the stage for his late-life political renaissance.
From Ambalapuzha to Devikulam, from Mararikulam to Malampuzha, VS’s political saga flows through the lexicon of Kerala’s watery lands. It's as though fate charted his electoral voyage through rivers and ponds, each with its own significance of rise and fall, loyalty and betrayal, silence and thunder.
These place names, half-poetic and half-prophetic, are more than geographical footnotes. They mirror the very essence of VS Achuthanandan himself a man who flowed like a river, deep and steady, but could also hold still like a pond, reflecting the truths his party often avoided. As Kerala bids farewell to its last red titan, perhaps this symbolism was never incidental. It was elemental.