As a politician, he was treasurer and a 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. From 1987–91 he was a member of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. Later, in 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.