Pinarayi Vijayan

Pinarayi Vijayan, , (born 24 May 1945 in Pinarayi) is an Indian politician who is the current Chief Minister of Kerala, serving since 25 May 2016. A member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), he is the longest-serving secretary of the Kerala State Committee of the CPI(M) (1998 to 2015). He also served in the government of Kerala as Minister of Electric Power and Co-operatives from 1996 to 1998. Vijayan won a seat in the May 2016 Kerala Legislative Assembly election as the CPI(M) candidate for Dharmadom constituency and was selected as the leader of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) and became the 12th Chief Minister of Kerala. He is the first chief minister from Kerala to be re-elected after completing a full term (five years) in office.
Personal life and Education.
Vijayan was born on 24 May 1945 in Pinarayi village of Malabar district in Madras Presidency, as the youngest son of Koran and Kalyani, into a Hindu Thiyyar community, the largest and dominant Hindu community in Kerala with 24% of the entire Kerala population. He had 14 siblings of whom only three survived. After graduating from school, he worked as a handloom weaver for a year before joining for Pre-university course in the Government Brennen College, Thalassery. Subsequently, he earned B.A. Economics degree from the same college.
He is married to Kamala Vijayan and has two children. His wife is a retired teacher.
Political career.
Pinarayi Vijayan entered politics through student union activities at Government Brennen College, Thalassery. He eventually joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in 1964. Vijayan became Kannur district secretary of the Kerala Students Federation (KSF), which later became the Students Federation of India (SFI). He went on to become the state secretary and subsequently the state president of KSF. He then moved on to Kerala State Youth Federation (KSYF), which later became the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI). He became the president of the state committee. During that period, when communists in Kerala were organising the political activities from different hide-outs, Pinarayi Vijayan was imprisoned for one and a half years.
Later he was elected as the president of the Kerala state co-operative bank. During the emergency, he was arrested and tortured by police. He became the Kannur district secretary of the CPI(M) when M.V. Raghavan left the party over the 'alternative document' row. Within three years, he became a member of the State Secretariat. He was elected to the Assembly in 1970, 1977 and 1991 from Kuthuparamba, in 1996 from Payyanur and in 2016 from Dharmadom. He was the Minister for Electric power and Co-operatives in the E.K. Nayanar ministry from 1996 to 1998. In 1998, he became the state secretary of the CPI(M), following the death of the incumbent Chadayan Govindan. He was elected to the Politburo of the CPI(M) in 2002.
On 26 May 2007 the CPI(M) suspended Pinarayi Vijayan and V. S. Achuthanandan from the Politburo for their public remarks on each other. Pinarayi was reinstated into the Politburo later.
Chief Minister.
Following the 2016 Legislative Assembly election, Pinarayi Vijayan became the Chief Minister of Kerala. The swearing-in ceremony of his Left Democratic Front ministry with 19-member cabinet was held on May 25, 2016. Vijayan held the charge of Home Affairs & Vigilance Departments along with the other portfolios normally held by the Chief Ministers, and not mentioned elsewhere. He is elected from Dharmadom constituency.