Cheriyan Kandi Muhammad Koya (15 July 1927–28 September 1983), Popularly known as C. H. Muhammad Koya, was an Indian politician who served as the Minister of Education in various Kerala Governments from 1967 to 1973 and from 1977 to 1979. He also briefly led the cabinet as the eighth Chief Minister of Kerala from 12 October to 1 December 1979. Koya was the first Indian Union Muslim League member to lead a state in independent India. As the Minister of Education, Koya championed the progress of the education of backward classes in northern Kerala. He also served as the Home Minister (1969–73) and the Deputy Chief Minister of Kerala (1981–83). Life and career Cheriyan Kandi Muhammad Koya was born in 1927 at Atholi in northern Kerala, to Payampunathil Ali and Mariyumma. Koya floated the Muslim Students Federation, the youth wing of the All-India Muslim League, in Malabar District while he was at Zamorin's College, Calicut and later helped to organize an admirable reception for the prominent Muslim League leader Liaquat Ali Khan at Calicut (1945). He joined the Chandrika newspaper, the official organ of the Muslim League, in 1946. Koya was first elected to the Kerala Assembly in the 1957 legislative elections. He went on to hold several key Kerala cabinet posts (Minister for Education, Deputy Chief Minister, Home Minister, and Minister for Finance). He served under both Indian National Congress and Communist Party of India Chief Ministers (E. M. S. Namboodiripad, C. Achutha Menon, K. Karunakaran, A. K. Antony, and P. K. Vasudevan Nair). He was elected to the Lok Sabha in the 1962 (1962–67) and in 1973 (1973–77, by-elections, replacing recently deceased M. Muhammed Ismail). He was a Member in the Kerala University Senate and served as Chairman, Governing Body, REC, Calicut. Koya died on 28 September, 1983 while serving as the Deputy Chief Minister of Kerala. He was aged just 56 at the time of his death. Legacy Koya was known his eloquent oratory and was described by scholar R. E. Miller as "grassroots star of the Mappila community" and the "ranking hero of Muslim youth" in Kerala. He acted as a "bridge-builder" among various social and religious groups of Kerala. Koya is remembered for his "spirited" reply to Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India when the latter publicly criticized Indian Union Muslim League as "a dead horse" at Calicut (1955). As the Minister of