Council in 1964 to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist) . He was the Secretary of the Kerala State Committee between 1980 and 1992. He was a member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau since 1985 until he was removed as a party disciplinary action. He is the senior most leader of CPI(M) in India. Chief Minister of Kerala (2006-2011) During the assembly elections held in Kerala in April–May 2006, VS Achuthanandan defeated Satheesan Pacheeni of the United Democratic Front by a margin of 20,017 votes in Malampuzha constituency in Palakkad district. He was sworn in as Chief Minister of Kerala on 18 May 2006, with his 21-member cabinet. Aged 82 years and 7 months at time, he was the oldest Chief Minister of Kerala, and one of the oldest in the whole of India. It is noticeable that he had been denied a party ticket to contest elections just two months before he was sworn in. He became the 11th Chief Minister of Kerala. On 12 July 2009, the CPI(M) Polit bureau and Central Committee removed him from the PB for his stands taken in relation to the accusation and legal procedures against Pinarayi Vijayan in his reported involvement in the Lavlin bribery. 2011 Assembly election The 2011 Kerala Legislative Assembly election, proved to be one of the closest in Kerala's history, with the UDF beating the LDF by a margin of 4 seats. After this election, Achuthanandan was considered the man behind the Uprising of LDF after the 2009 Parliament and 2010 Municipal election losses. The CPI(M) denied a seat to Achuthanandan for the 2011 assembly election. Protests took place across the state and even on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and via SMS. In what can be considered as a near repeat of the 2006 pre-election build-up, the Politbureau of CPI-M impressed upon the state leadership to permit VS Achuthanandan to contest elections for the April 2011 Assembly election in Kerala. VS Achuthanandan contested from the Malampuzha Constituency and won with a margin of around 25,000 votes. Removal of personal staff On 12 May 2013, three of his personal staff V.K. Sasidharan (additional private secretary), A. Suresh (personal assistant) and K. Balakrishnan (press secretary) were ousted by the Politburo, which was entrusted by the CPI(M) central committee to decide on the action to be taken against them. They were expelled on charges of leaking information