CPI(M) stalwart Chandranandan no more

CPI(M) stalwart P K Chandranandan, a frontline comrade of 1946 Punnapara-Vayalar uprising in erstwhile Travancore, died here today, party sources said.
Chandranandan (90) was keeping indifferent health for some time and died in a hospital where he was admitted a few days back.
He is survived by three children.
A former MLA, Chandranandan was a committed organiser who built the Left movement in Central Travancore region right from the pre-independence days.
Popularly known as PKC, he was a vanguard volunteer of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising spearheaded by the Communists in 1946 against the royal regime of Travancore and the alleged moves of the then Diwan C P Ramaswamy Iyer to keep the princely state an independent entity without being part of the Indian Union after the Independence.

Chandranandan spent 13 years as underground activist due to repression of Communists after the suppression of the uprising and ban on Indian Communist Party following the Calcutta Theses shortly after independence.

With the lifting of the ban, Chandranandan concentrated in building the party and its feeder outfits and threw his lot with the CPI(M) after the 1964 split in the Communist Party of India (CPI).
He had served as Alappuzha district secretary of the party for long and was elected to the Kerala Assembly in 1980 from Ambalappuzha.
Condoling the death of Chandranandan, CPI(M) state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan said PKC had always been a source of inspiration and model for Communists in Kerala.