Centenarian freedom fighter Ayyappan Pillai passes away at 107

Veteran freedom fighter eminent lawyer and one of the early leaders of the BJP in the state K Ayyappan Pillai died in the city at the age of 107 years family sources said on WednesdayHe was not keeping well for some time due to agerelated ailments and was under treatment for some health issues at a private hospital here they saidA prominent personality in the sociocultural arena of the state capital for several decades and a public figure commanding respect across party lines Pillai was one of the senior most members of the bar associations in the countryThe centenarian was also the one of the first councillors of the Thiruvananthapuram CorporationAn ardent admirer of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi he had actively participated in the Quit India movementIt was as per the advise of the Mahatma that Pillai ventured into the public service in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore at a tender ageA supporter of Travancore State Congress formed under local chapter of Indian National Congress in 1938 State Congress leaders assigned him to present peoples grievances before the royal administration on many occasionsHe had acted as mediator between the royal administration and Congress when many of its leaders were jailed immediately after Independence when the then diwan C P Ramaswamy Iyer propped up the idea of independent TravancorePillai later moved to Praja Socialist Party and then to the BJP in which he served as the vicepresident for some timePillai had been in news some years ago as a person who had never failed to exercise his democratic right in any of the elections after IndependencePillai in an interview to PTI earlier had said his first vote was cast on February 1948 to select representatives to the Constituent Assembly of the responsible government in TranvancoreThis Assembly was later given powers of a Legislative Assembly based on the request of leadersI cast my first vote at a polling station set up at a military camp of the Travancore State Force at Pangode here I also worked as a polling agent then he had said adding that he had since then voted in all the polls heldThey include the first election after the formation of TravancoreCochin state the first Parliament election in the country in 195152 the first state election in the united Kerala in 1957 after amalgamation of TravancoreCochin with Malabar which was part of composite Madras stateThough he contested in the BJP ticket from Thiruvananthapuram during 1980s he could not winCondoling his death Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said besides being a prominent sociopolitical activist Pillai also made his mark as an eminent lawyerBJP state president K Surendran in his condolence message remembered Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called Pillai over phone during the time of the lockdown last yearThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever