DMK engaged in a bloody struggle to maintain his position as the Nilgiri Raja

This is the time of year when the warm weather brings many of visitors. The DMK’s A Raja, a former telecom minister in the UPA-2 government, and the BJP’s L Murugan, a minister of state in Modi’s ministry, are engaged in an ideological war in this reserved seat, which has raised the political temperature in the ancient mountain ranges.

With Lokesh Tamilselvan of the AIADMK, the son of P Dhanapal, the speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly for almost ten years till May 2021, Raja and Murugan are engaged in a vicious three-cornered war.

Murugan, a Namakkal native, joined the RSS after being heavily engaged in the ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) during his college years. He was Vice Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) from 2017 to 2020. He collaborated extensively with members of the SC community throughout this time. He was elected as the BJP’s state president in March 2020, making him the second member of the Dalit community to occupy the position after S P Kirubanidhi.

DMK engaged in a bloody struggle to remain as the Nilgiris’ Raja “threatened to kill me”: A government official from Nilgiris claims RO is biased in favor of DMK LS candidate A Raja.
Murugan ran in the TN Assembly election of 2021 when the BJP and AIADMK were in an alliance. He lost by a narrow margin of 1,393 votes to N Kayalvizhi Selvaraj of the DMK, who later became the state minister for Adi Dravidar Welfare. He was admitted to the Union cabinet in less than a month.

Following the horrific Coimbatore serial bomb bombing event in 1998, the BJP won the Nilgiris seat twice, in 1998 and 1999. In 1998, BJP candidate M Master Mathan beat Tamil Maanila Congress candidate S R Balasubramanian, having formed an alliance with the AIADMK to run. A year later, he beat R Prabhu of the Congress, this time running as a member of the DMK coalition.

The BJP believes it has a good chance of winning because of this. Murugan previously said that the party had a strong chance of capturing nine Lok Sabha seats in the state, including Nilgiris. He began working on polling issues here rather early on, establishing election offices, going to the area regularly to meet with party cadre, and engaging with the people.

DMK engaged in a bloody struggle to remain as the Nilgiris Raja. A heated dispute is developing in the sizzling Nilgiris 2G scandal, which is returning to haunt the Raja after the CBI’s appeal.

There were rumors that he would not run in the Lok Sabha elections after the BJP nominated him from Madhya Pradesh to the Rajya Sabha in February. To many’s astonishment, he was put up as the BJP candidate in this race. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the AIADMK won four out of the six assembly seats within the Nilgiris Lok Sabha constituency. Murugan was optimistic that the Dravidian major’s backing would aid in propelling him to the Parliament from this position. But he suffered a blow when the AIADMK severed its relations with the BJP. However, he is thought to benefit from the substantial Hindu voter base in the seat, which is found in areas like Mettupalayam, Coonoor, and Ooty.

Raja, a Perambalur native, relocated to the Nilgiris in 2009 when delimitation changed his own seat into a general category one. With 44.7% of the vote, he won by an overwhelming 86,021 margin. In the administration of Manmohan Singh, he was appointed minister of telecom. Raja was detained by the CBI in February 2011 in connection with the 2G spectrum allotment fraud. As a result, he lost the Nilgiris Lok Sabha seat in 2014.

DMK engaged in a bloody struggle to maintain his position as the Nilgiri Raja
According to BJP’s Murugan, the battle in the Nilgiris between Modiji and 2G aims In December 2017, a special court acquitted Raja Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi in the 2G case. He referred to former CAG Vinod Rai as a “contract killer,” employed by the state because of the latter’s part in the fall of the UPA-2 administration. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Raja returned with a bang, defeating M Thyagarajan of the AIADMK by a margin of more than 2 lakh votes. But the 2G issue has come back to haunt him since the CBI’s petition against Raja’s acquittal was accepted by the Delhi High Court in March 2024.

Raja may benefit from a more vocal campaign than Murugan while playing on the field. However, Raja’s recent divisive remarks on Lord Ram, the Ramayana, and Sanatana Dharma have also sparked a fire in political circles.