Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) leader and former Water Resources Minister V.P. Ramakrishna Pillai died at a private hospital here on Tuesday. He was 84.
Mr. Pillai was suffering from renal ailment and had been staying away from active politics for a while. Mr. Pillai was Water Resources Minister from 1998 to 2001.
The body will be kept at the party State headquarters at Pattom in Thiruvananthapuram from Wednesday morning for the people to pay their last respects and then be brought to Kollam, his native place, in the afternoon and kept at the party’s district committee office.
The funeral rites will be held at his family house at Ashtamudi in the evening. Mr. Pillai is survived by four sons and a daughter. Fondly called VP Chettan, Mr. Pillai, who had played a lead role in the growth of the RSP in Kollam district, entered active politics through the Progressive Students Union while a student at M.G. College, Thiruvananthapuram.
On entering the RSP, he had worked under the leadership of party stalwarts N. Sreekantan Nair, T.K. Divakaran, Baby John and R.S. Unni. His debut in electoral politics was in 1987 when he contested for the Assembly successfully from Eravipuram. He was elected for the second time from the same constituency in 1996.
With the LDF coming to power in 1996, it was Baby John who represented the RSP in the State Cabinet. But when Baby John took seriously ill in 1998, Mr. Pillai replaced him as Minister for Water Resources and Labour till 2001. In 2008 during the State conference of the RSP in Kollam, Pillai was elected State secretary of the party by defeating the then incumbent T.J. Chandrachoodan.
