C. H. Mohammed Koya

Cheriyan Kandi Muhammad Koya (15 July 1927–28 September 1983) was an Indian politician who served as the 8th Chief Minister of Kerala from October to December 1979. He is more often noted for being the Minister of Education of Kerala from 1967 to 1973 and again from 1977 to 1979. After his Chief Ministership, Koya went on to become the 2nd Deputy Chief Minister of Kerala from 1981 until his death in 1983. He is the first Indian Union Muslim League member to lead a state in independent India. As the Minister of Education, Koya championed the progress of the education of backward classes in northern Kerala. He also served as the Home Minister (1969–73) and the Deputy Chief Minister of Kerala (1981–83). Cheriyan Kandi Muhammad Koya was born in 1927 at Atholi in northern Kerala, to Payampunathil Ali and Mariyumma. Koya floated the Muslim Students Federation, the youth wing of the All-India Muslim League, in Malabar District while he was at Zamorin's College, Calicut and later helped to organize an admirable reception for the prominent Muslim League leader Liaquat Ali Khan at Calicut (1945). He joined the Chandrika newspaper, the official organ of the Muslim League, in 1946.