Anto Antony Punnathaniyil is a newly elected member of the 15th Lok Sabha from the Pathanamthitta electoral district in Kerala. He is a member of the Indian National Congress and on May 16, 2009, in the first election held in this newly-apportioned district, he was elected as a United Democratic Front (UDF) candidate by 408,232 votes over K. Ananthagopan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) with 297,026; B. Radhakrishna Menon of the Bharatiya Janata Party with 56,294 and three other candidates.[1]
In 2004, he had lost in the Kottayam race to CPI(M) candidate K. Suresh Kurup, by 341,213 votes to his 298,299.[2]
A native of Poonjar in Kottayam district, he was 53 years old in April 2009. He attended St. Thomas College, Pala; the Kerala Law Academy Law College, Thiruvananthapuram (affiliated to Kerala University); the Government Law College, Ernakulam, (under Mahatma Gandhi University; and the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences.[3] He was general secretary of the Kerala Students Union [4]