Nainar Nagendran is an Indian politician of the

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

(BJP) in the state of

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a States and union territories of India, state in southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of India ...

Political career

He left the

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. It is a Dravidian party founded by the former chief mini ...

(AIADMK) party in August 2017 to join the

. He was one of several AIADMK figures to do so and soon after his move he was appointed a state-level BJP vice-president. As an AIADMK candidate, Nagendran was elected as a

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. S ...

(MLA) from Tirunelveli constituency in the

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and 2011 state assembly elections. He lost the seat by 606 votes in the election of 2006 and in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

, when the difference was 601. His opponent in the latter election was A. L. S. Lakshmanan of the

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; DMK) is a political party based in the state of Tamil Nadu where it is currently the ruling party having a comfortable majority without coalition support and the union territory of Puducherry where it is curre ...

(DMK), a person he had beaten in 2011 by over 38,000 votes. Nagendran served variously as a Minister for Electricity, Industry and Transport during the AIADMK-led government of 2001–2006. He was not a member of the cabinet during the AIADMK government led by

Jayalalithaa Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and actress who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for more than fourteen years over six terms between 1991 and 2016. From 9 February 1989 to 5 December 2 ...

from 2011 but he said it was her death and the subsequent rudderless situation in which the party found itself that caused his move to the BJP in 2017 In 2021, as a BJP candidate Nagendran has been elected to Tamil Nadu state assembly from Tirunelveli constituency for the third time defeating the DMK candidate by a margin of 23,107 votes. In addition he has been also selected as the leader of BJP members in Tamil Nadu assembly.

Disproportionate assets case

Tamil Nadu's Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption conducted raids in 12 places belonging to Nagendran in various parts of Chennai city and in his native place of southern Tirunelveli district and in Kochi. Later, investigation conducted in 2006 revealed the accumulation of Nainar Nagendran's assets in excess of his income when he was a minister of Industry, Power and Transport during the AIADMK rule. Vigilant police investigation has revealed that Nagendran bought property including gold jewellery and lands for more than 3 crore 9 lakh 97 thousand 97 rupees. A chargesheet was filed in December 2010 against Nainar Nagendran his wife and four other relatives under the Prevention of Corruption Act for Rs 3.9 crore disproportionate assets case by Directorate of Vigilance.

Controversy

Nainar Nagendran has sent death threats against acclaimed Tamil lyricist and writer

Vairamuthu Vairamuthu Ramasamy (born 13 July 1953) is an Indian lyricist, poet, and novelist working in the Tamil film industry. He is a prominent figure in the Tamil literary world. A master's graduate from the Pachaiyappa's College in Chennai, he first ...

in January 2018 for his controversial remarks on Andal. Nagendran has announced that BJP leaders are ready to award a cash reward of ₹10 crore for anyone slays and chops the tongue of writer Vairamuthu. He also said there should be no hesitation in

killing Killing, Killings, or The Killing may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Killing'' (film), a 2018 Japanese film * ''The Killing'' (film), a 1956 film noir directed by Stanley Kubrick Television * ''The Killing'' (Danish TV serie ...

even those people who speak ill of

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

. This created a huge controversy in Tamil Nadu. Later, he was arrested together with Hindu Munnani state vice-president VC Jayabalan for provocative

hate speech Hate speech is defined by the ''Cambridge Dictionary'' as "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". Hate speech is "usually thoug ...

that would cause divisiveness among the people and posed a threat to national unity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nagendran, Nainar All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam politicians Living people State cabinet ministers of Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu MLAs 2001–2006 Tamil Nadu MLAs 2011–2016 Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Tamil Nadu Year of birth missing (living people) Tamil Nadu MLAs 2021–2026