A. K. Antony was born to a Syrian Catholic family[7] at Cherthala, near Alleppey in Travancore[8] as the son of Arackaparambil Kurien Pillai and Aleykutty Kurian.

Antony subsequently contested a by-election from Kazhakuttam constituency in Trivandrum as he was not a member of the assembly and won by healthy margin of over 8 thousand votes.

Eventually, exactly one and half years after he had been sworn in as Chief Minister, he resigned from the post as well as the Congress party following its decision to field Indira Gandhi as the candidate in the by-election in Chikmagalur, Karnataka.

[18] Antony had to wait for over 15 years before becoming Chief Minister for a second term; again, on the back of Karunakaran's resignation this time over the controversial ISRO spy case.

This term also lasted only one year before the United Democratic Front led by Antony narrowly lost the assembly elections in May 1996.

By the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress was a badly divided house and Antony had the disgrace of leading the party to its worst electoral performance since 1967.

The final nail on the coffin was the defeat of K. Muraleedharan, the Electricity Minister in Antony's cabinet (incidentally Karunakaran's son) in the Wadakkanchery by-election, a seat widely perceived to be a Congress bastion.

He also liberalised education by allowing several private engineering and medical colleges to open in Kerala and championed the state as an investment destination.

[citation needed] He also ordered the closure of the Kerala Coca-Cola plant in 2004 citing drought and the non-availability of drinking water.

He resigned on moral grounds as food minister in 1994 when his ministry was involved in a sugar import scandal, despite there being no allegations against him.

[28][2] His "Buy and Make Indian" campaign saw the cancellation of billion of dollars in purchases of foreign arms, while at the same time stunting domestic production by restricting investments.

[43] 10th Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee admired Antony[44] for his simplicity, gentleness and his zeal for reforms and change as a way to ensure acceleration of Kerala's all-round development.

[1][45] Leaked diplomatic cables said Antony was one of the only two leaders, the other being P. R. Dasmunsi, who criticised Sanjay Gandhi during the 1976 AICC session in Guwahati during Emergency when the latter's political standing was on the rise, asking "what sacrifices he has made for the party or the country".

[46] Antony is married to Elizabeth who is a Kerala High Court lawyer[47] and is the founder of the Navoothan Charitable Foundation.