Kerala’s Leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has remembered his late party compatriot V.S. Achuthanandan as “a blazing memory that perennially ignites Kerala’s social conscience” even a year after the death of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) veteran.

In a Facebook post on Achuthanandan’s first death anniversary on Tuesday (July 21, 2026), Mr Vijayan said the late leader’s odyssey from an organiser of agrarian struggles during the colonial period as a teenager to communist leader, trade unionist and later Chief Minister was a story of working class defiance, fiery perseverance and, ultimately, triumph, in the face of heavy social and economic odds.

Mr Vijayan reminisced about the custodial torture and near-death experience Achuthanandan endured at the hands of the colonial police and their feudal overlords. He said oppressive and anti-working class governments forced Achuthanandan to go underground and endure long periods of incarceration, even during the Emergency.

“Forged in the fire of working class struggle, Achuthanandan emerged as a steely communist leader. His courage of political conviction impelled him to walk out of the national council of the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1964 (following an ideological split and he was one of the pioneering 32 leaders who founded the Communist Party of India (Marxist)”, Mr Vijayan wrote.

Mr Vijayan recalled that as Leader of the Opposition, Achuthanandan aggressively championed people’s causes, strong-arming governments to correct course.

“As Chief Minister, Achuthanandan ensured that development and people’s welfare marched in lockstep. He overcame the travails and tribulations of advanced age through sheer will. Age was never a limiting factor for V.S. His flaming memory will remain a beacon for the communist movement and modern Kerala”, Mr Vijayan said.