140 kilometres, 22 hours, a familiar destination – VS Achuthanandan’s last journey

When the cortege reached Harippad in Alappuzha, local legislator and senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala was waiting to pay homage. “When the final journey of VS is passing through Harippad, I have to be here,” he said.

After reaching Alappuzha, the body was taken to his Velikkakathu house at Punnapra, where senior party leaders, including CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby, state secretary M V Govindan and Indian Union Muslim League president Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, were present.

Later, in the afternoon, the body was taken to the Alappuzha district committee office of the CPI(M), which VS had turned into his second home during his early years of political life in the undivided Communist Party.

The burial ground, which is close to communist hearts, is the resting place of hundreds of martyrs of the 1946 Punnapra-Vayalar uprising and several early leaders of the Communist movement such as T V Thomas, K R Gouriyamma, P T Punoose, R Sugathan and P K Chandranadan.

The uprising, in which hundreds were martyred, had been a defining moment in the making of the organiser in VS. He was in charge of a camp to make sharpened lances out of arecanut tree planks to use against the weapons of the police force.

Every year, VS used to pay tributes to the martyrs on the commemoration of the event in October. The last time he visited Valiyachudukadu was in October 2019, before he was bedridden following a stroke.