Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan's journey from CPM stalwart to popular leader

Despite violent protests by Hindu groups, the Kerala CM ensured that women of menstrual age entered the Sabarimala temple

Owing to his style of functioning, many used to call him “Trump in a dhoti” or “Modi without a moustache” in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPM.

But in a span of over two years, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has graduated from being a stalwart of the CPM to a “strong” mass leader and arguably the “most able administrator” that the state has seen in over three decades. His loyalists line up the way he managed natural and political crises as proof of this. 

The feathers to his cap were the managerial skills that he displayed while handling Cyclone