States »SoutPosted at: Jul 7 2021 8:06PM Murugan's journey from court to Cabinet
Chennai, Jul 7 (UNI) BJP Tamil Nadu unit president L Murugan, inducted as a Minister of State in the Union Cabinet in the first reshuffle of second BJP-led NDA regime headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself might be surprised over his choice.
Mr Murugan was born on May 29, 1977 in Paramathi of Namakkal district.
A post graduate in Law from Madras University, Murugan carries over 15 years of career as a lawyer.
Murugan had been a functionary of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) during his college days and had unsuccessfully contested 2011 Assembly elections from Salem (Reserved) seat and secured 1,721 votes.
He has done LLB (BL) from Dr Ambedkar Government Law College, Chennai.
Murugan did his Masters in International Law and International Organizations, University of Madras. He also has a postgraduate diploma in Intellectual Property Rights.
He was appointed as the State Unit chief of the BJP on March 11, last year after his predecessor Ms Tamilisai Soundararajan was elevated as the Telangana Governor.
Mr Murugan has also served as the Vice President of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC).
He is the second leader from the Dalit community to become the State Unit Chief of BJP after SP Kirubanithi, who had held the post 20 years ago.
He had managed to rope in a galaxy of film stars into the BJP, besides key Dalit leaders from the DMK, including former Assembly Deputy Speaker V P Duraisamy, and also former DMK MLA Ku Ka Selvam, in the run up to the Assembly polls.
After Mr Murugan took over as the State Chief, the BJP got an image make over, with popular Tamil actors and actress joining the party. They included former Congress spokesperson Khushbu Sundar, who unsuccessfully contested in the recent Assembly polls from Thousand Lights Constituency in the city, besides actress
Namitha and Gayathri Jayaram.
He too entered the electoral fray from Dharapuram (R) but narrowly lost to Kayalvizhi N of DMK by about 1393 votes, despite leading initially.
Mr Murugan has been credited with the fact that the saffron party has for the first time got four of its members elected to the Tamil Nadu Assembly, the highest numbers so far in the august House.
The BJP contested 20 seats as part of the AIADMK-led Front and managed to win four seats, thereby entering the Assembly after a gap of 20 years.
The victorious candidates were M R Gandhi (Nagercoil), Nainar Nagendran (Tirunelveli), C Saraswathi (Modakurichi), and Mahila Morcha chief Vanathi Srinivasan (Coimbatore South).
UNI GV SY 2005