Despite losing Nilgiris, Murugan back as minister

L Murugan, an outgoing minister of state and former Tamil Nadu president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was inducted into the NDA’s council of ministers on Sunday despite losing from the Nilgiris constituency during the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.

Murugan (47) was the runner up in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris constituency (reserved for scheduled caste) where he lost to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) A Raja. In the previous cabinet, Murugan was the Union minister of state for information and broadcasting and fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying. Murugan entered Modi’s cabinet in July 2021 during a reshuffle. In February, he was elected unopposed as a BJP MP to the Rajya Sabha.

In March 2020, Murugan was made the president of BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit. The 2021 assembly elections were fought under his leadership when the BJP and AIADMK were allies. Murugan spearheaded the BJP’s Vetri Vel Yatra in Tamil Nadu ahead of the assembly elections to consolidate Hindu votes.

Though the yatra received a tepid response, the BJP entered the Tamil Nadu assembly after 20 years by winning four seats out of the 20 that they had contested in the state. But Murugan himself lost in that election by a slender margin of more than a thousand votes to DMK’s N Kayalvizhi Selvaraj. He has lost the elections he has contested in so far – 2011 assembly elections, a by-election in 2012, assembly elections in 2021 and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Murugan has remained a steady presence alongside Modi. He was rewarded for the BJP’s 2021 performance with a cabinet berth. He was succeeded by ex-IPS officer K Annamalai as the BJP chief. Murugan and Annamalai have flanked Modi through all his road shows and public meetings in Tamil Nadu.

Murugan is the Dalit face of the BJP’s unit in the state. “Thiru L. Murugan Ji is a son of the soil of Tamil Nadu,” Modi said in Tamil Nadu in February. “He didn’t win from the state, but we have given Tamil Nadu’s Dalit son a place of pride in the ministry and sent him to the Rajya Sabha from Hindi-speaking Madhya Pradesh.” Modi celebrated Pongal, a harvest festival in Tamil Nadu, at Murugan’s Delhi residence earlier in January.

Born in Namakkal district to Telugu speaking parents who are farmers, Murugan belongs to the Arunthathiyar community. As a student he worked for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He completed his undergraduate degree in law from Dr Ambedkar Law College in Chennai.

He was also the vice chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes from 2017 to 2020.