 He had burnt English copies of legislative bills in the Assembly hall and his supporters had to undergo several days of imprisonment for shouting slogans demanding introduction of Malayalam as official language.A formal declaration to this effect was made by the state government in 2012.In 2004 he was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Mukundapuram constituency, defeating Karunakaran's daughter Padmaja Venugopal by a margin of more than a lakh votes.