With the elevation of Mullappally Ramachandran as the president of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), Kozhikode can now boast of being home to some of the top leaders of leading political parties and their mass organisations in the State.
Mr. Ramachandran is an MP representing Vadakara in the district. A native of Chombala, he was earlier the Kozhikode district president of the Kerala Students Union, and the Youth Congress.
Mr. Ramachandran used to work as a sub editor for the now defunct Malayalam newspaper Viplavavam. Elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time in 1984 from Kannur, he represented the seat till 1999, when he lost it to CPI(M)’s greenhorn A.P. Abdullakkutty. Mr. Ramachandran could come out of political wilderness a decade later when he trounced CPI(M)’s sitting MP P. Sathidevi from the party’s stronghold Vadakara in 2009. He was the Minister of State for Agriculture in the P.V. Narasimha Rao Cabinet and the Minister of State for for Home in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet.
K.M. Abhijith, president of the Kerala Students Union, the Congress’ student wing, is also from Kozhikode. A native of Balussery, he came to the limelight as a student leader in Government Arts and Science College, Meenchanda.
The mass organisations of the ruling CPI(M) too have its senior leaders hailing from here. P.A. Mohammed Riyas, the national president of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, belongs to Kozhikode. He was the CPI(M) candidate in the 2009 Parliament elections from the Kozhikode constituency.
K.M. Sachindev, the recently elected State secretary of the Students Federation of India, was a district-level functionary of the organisation till recently.
Elamaram Kareem, MP, and former Minister, is the State general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
P.S. Sreedharan Pillai, the current State president of the BJP, has made Kozhikode home for long. A native of Pathanamthitta district, this practising lawyer first came here as a law student and was part of the anti-Emergency movement in the late ’70s.
P. Prakash Babu, the State president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, the party’s youth wing, is also from Kozhikode district.
