M. P. Veerendra Kumar

Who is M. P. Veerendra Kumar?

M. P. Veerendra Kumar was a member of the 14th Lok Sabha of India. He is a member of the Socialist Janata political party and the president of Kerala state unit of the party. He is also the chairman and managing director of the Malayalam daily newspaper Mathrubhumi. A prominent writer in Malayalam, he won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for his travelogue Haimavatha Bhoovil. He is the father of M. V. Shreyams Kumar.

Born to Marudevi Avva and Padmaprabha Gowder on 22 July 1936, after schooling in Kalpetta and at Kozhikode, he did his Masters in Philosophy from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College, Madras.

An active politician he was the treasurer and national committee member of the former Samyukta Socialist Party, state secretary of the Kerala Unit of the Socialist Party, one of the all India Secretaries of the former Socialist Party, Convener of the Opposition Co-ordination Committee in Kerala, Vice President of the former Janata Party, and its President. He was arrested during the emergency. Currently, he is the President of Socialist Janata Party, a constituent of the United Democratic Front in Kerala. During 1987-91 he was elected member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. Later 1996 he was elected to the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India from Kozhikode constituency and functioned as Minister of state for Labour and later Finance.