N Vijayan Pillai, the legislator from Chavara, passed away early on Sunday at a private hospital in Kochi, said family sources. He was under treatment for a terminal illness for the past two months. The last rites would be held at his home near Kollam.

The 65-year-old began his political career in the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and was a close aide of Baby John, senior leader of RSP.

After representing the local bodies for over two decades, he moved to the Congress party but after a few years, he left the Congress.

In the 2016 Assembly polls, Pillai won a seat under the banner of a faction of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) and defeated local legislator and Shibhu Baby John by 6,189 votes.

After the formation of Chavara assembly constituency, Vijayan Pillai was the first non-RSP candidate to win election from there.

Vijayan had close ties with former Chief Minister K Karunakaran. When he left Congress in 2005, Vijayan, who was the part of Congress then, left the party and joined Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran), and came back to Congress when Karunakaran rejoined the party.

According to reports, Vijayan Pillai then again left Congress following the tussle with the then Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chairman VM Sudheeran, over the liquor policy. Following that, he joined the Communist Marxist Party (Aravindakshan). The party was later merged with CPI(M) in 2016 and fielded Vijayan as the assembly candidate from Chavara.

Born as the son of V Narayana Pillai and Bhavani Amma at Chavara in Kollam in 1951, Vijayan was also an agriculturalist and industrialist. Being active in politics for the past 45 years, Vijayan has held the positions of Chavara gram panchayat chairman, he was a panchayat member for over 20 years, he served as the Kollam district panchayat vice president, Kollam Cooperative district bank’s vice president and  Kollam District Human Resource Co-operative Society president.

The state legislative assembly had recently given the ailing Vijayan Pillai leave as he was not able to attend the sessions because of his ailments.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has also expressed condolences. “He was a fellow member of the house who was devoted to people. Especially for the development of Chavara and for the development of the state as well as a member of the legislative assembly, he has given huge contributions,” Pinarayi Vijayan said.

Vijayan Pillai is survived by his wife, a daughter and two sons.

(With inputs from IANS)

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