Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader K.P. Unnikrishnan, a life-long socialist and a key figure in national politics in the 80s and 90s who played an instrumental role in the massive evacuation of Indians during the Gulf war, passed away at a hospital in the city in the early hours of Tuesday.

He was 89. Mr. Unnikrishnan had not been keeping well for some time. He is survived by his wife, Amrita, and two daughters. The final rites will be held on Wednesday.

Mr. Unnikrishnan has the rare distinction of representing a Lok Sabha constituency for the longest period in Kerala’s political history. He was the MP for Vadakara in Kozhikode from 1971 to 1996, that too as the nominee of three political parties.

His entry to the upper House of Parliament in 1971 on a Congress ticket had its share of drama as well. Then working as a journalist with Mathrubhumi in New Delhi, he was unfamiliar to a majority of the local Congress leaders. Moreover, local party leaders had already begun campaigning for Leela Damodara Menon, wife of Congress stalwart K.A. Damodara Menon, from Vadakara. Though a section of party leaders kept off from the election work in protest, Mr. Unnikrishnan managed to romp home. He continued his winning streak in the 1977, 1980, 1984, 1989, and 1991 elections as well.

However, the victories were significant for many reasons. In the first two elections, he was part of the Congress faction led by Indira Gandhi. After he broke away from the party in 1978, Mr. Unnikrishnan contested as a candidate of the Congress (U) and then the Congress (S).

In the 1984 polls, he was among the three Left Democratic Front candidates who withstood the pro-Rajiv Gandhi wave in Kerala. When the Bofors scandal rocked the nation, his interventions against the Congress government in Parliament were widely discussed.

Mr. Unnikrishnan also served as a Union Minister for Telecommunications, Shipping, and Surface Transport in the V.P. Singh Cabinet from 1989 to 1990. During this time, he led the evacuation of over 1.5 lakh Indians, mostly Keralites, from Kuwait during the Gulf War. Despite the Cabinet advising against it, he went to the hiding place of Iraq’s then President Saddam Hussein and successfully negotiated their return.

The 1991 election too was crucial when he successfully defeated lawyer M. Ratna Singh, who was fielded by the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the BJP, a political experiment which later came to be known as the ‘Cong-League-BJP’ or Co-Le-B’ tie-up. Though Mr. Unnikrishnan returned to the Congress in 1994, he could not win another term in the 1996 polls as he was defeated by O. Bharathan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

Mr. Unnikrishnan was born on September 20, 1936, at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. His father’s family was from Koyilandy in Kozhikode. He was drawn to politics quite early as most of his family members were part of the freedom movement. Mr. Unnikrishnan was part of the socialist students’ movement during his days at Madras Christian College and Presidency College in Madras.

In the 1960s, he joined the Congress and became a member of the All-India Congress Committee. Mr. Unnikrishan also worked for a while in Blitz newspaper in Bombay during the period. He was a staunch supporter of Indira Gandhi in her early years in power. However, Mr. Unnikrishnan parted ways with her after the Emergency and following differences of opinion with Sanjay Gandhi.