Phanindranath Rangarajan Kumaramangalam (12 May 1952 – 23 August 2000) was a prominent politician of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

and later 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 ...

and a

Member of parliament, Lok Sabha A Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha (abbreviated: MP) is the representative of a legislative constituency in the Lok Sabha; the lower house of the Parliament of India. Members of parliament of Lok Sabha are chosen by direct Elections in I ...

from the Salem constituency from 1984 to 1996 and

Tiruchirapalli Tiruchirappalli () ( formerly Trichinopoly in English), also called Tiruchi or Trichy, is a major tier II city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli district. The city is credited with bein ...

constituency from 1998 to 2000. He served as the Minister of State for Law, Justice and Company Affairs in the P. V. Narasimha Rao government from July 1991 to December 1993 and as the Union Minister for Power in the Vajpayee Government from 1998 to 2000. He was the grandson of former Chief Minister of Madras, P. Subbarayan and the nephew of former Indian Chief of Army, General P. P. Kumaramangalam.

Personal life

Rangarajan was born on 12 May 1952 in the Zamindari family of Kumaramangalam, in

Tiruchengode Tiruchengode is a city and selection grade municipality located in southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is famous for the ancient hilltop Ardhanareeswarar temple, Tiruchengode, temple of Umaiorubagan (Arthanāreeshwara), dedicated to the uniq ...

Taluk,

Namakkal District Namakkal District is one of the 38 districts (an districts of Tamil Nadu, administrative district) in the States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu, India. The district was bifurcated from Salem District with Namakkal town as headqua ...

. His grandfather Paramasiva Subbarayan was the Chief Minister (Premier) of the then

Madras presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

from 1925 to 1930 and a Cabinet Minister under later Governments. His uncle, General P.P. Kumaramangalam was a veteran of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and a former Chief of Army Staff. Rangarajan's father

Mohan Kumaramangalam Surendra Mohan Kumaramangalam ( ta, சுரேந்திர மோகன் குமாரமங்கலம்) (1 November 1916 — 30 May 1973) was an Indian politician and communist theorist who was a member of the Communist Party of I ...

was an important theorist and organiser of the undivided

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

and later switched to

influenced by the socialist policies of then Prime Minister

Indira Gandhi Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi (; Given name, ''née'' Nehru; 19 November 1917 – 31 October 1984) was an Indian politician and a central figure of the Indian National Congress. She was elected as third prime minister of India in 1966 ...

and served as Union Cabinet Minister for Steel & Mines in her cabinet. His mother Kalyani Mukherjee was the niece of

Ajoy Mukherjee Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee (15 April 1901 – 27 May 1986) was an Indian independence activist and politician who served three short terms as the fourth and sixth Chief Minister of West Bengal. He hailed from Tamluk, Purba Medinipur district, West Be ...

Chief Minister of West Bengal The Chief Minister of West Bengal is the representative of the Government of India in the state of West Bengal and the head of the executive branch of the Government of West Bengal. The chief minister is head of the Council of Ministers and ap ...

, and of Biswanath Mukherjee, husband of the communist ideologue and parliamentarian

Geeta Mukherjee Geeta Mukherjee (8 January 1924 – 4 March 2000) was an Indian politician and social worker and a four times MLA from Panskura Purba, from 1967 to 1977. As a Member of Parliament, she was elected seven times from the Panskura constituency, ...

Politics

Ranga was deeply involved in student politics right from the earliest stages, as one of the founding members and the first president of the National Students Union of India (NSUI). It was no less a person than Prime Minister

, whose great personal favourite he was, who called him to take up this post after going through due process. By 1973, he had also been elected a member of the All India Congress Committee. In 1977, on obtaining a degree from

Kirori Mal College Kirori Mal College is a constituent college of the University of Delhi. Established in 1954, it is located in the North Campus of the university in New Delhi, India. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the sciences, humanities ...

Delhi University Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

, he moved to

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

to practice in labour law. When the Congress was re-elected in 1980, Rangarajan was asked by his very dear friend, soon-to-be-Prime Minister

Rajiv Gandhi Rajiv Gandhi (; 20 August 1944 – 21 May 1991) was an Indian politician who served as the sixth prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the 1984 assassination of his mother, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to beco ...

, to play an active role in politics. He contested and won the 1984 elections from

Salem Lok Sabha constituency Salem is a parliamentary (Lok Sabha) constituency in Tamil Nadu, India. Its Tamil Nadu Parliamentary Constituency number is 15 of 39. History Since 1952, the Salem parliament seat was held by the Indian National Congress eight times (1952, 1957 ...

P.V. Narasimha Rao Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known for introducing various liberal reforms to Ind ...

appointed him Minister of State for Law, Justice and Company Affairs in July 1991. Despite his personal sense of loyalty to

Narasimha Rao Narasimha Rao or Narasimharao is an Indian surname. It may refer to: * P. V. Narasimha Rao (1921–2004), ninth prime minister of India * Panuganti Lakshminarasimha Rao (1865–1940), Telugu writer * Vinjamuri Venkata Lakshmi Narasimha Rao (1887� ...

, Ranga was unable to support him in what was increasingly being seen as a corrupt Congress regime. In a letter to the President he raised several issues with regards to corruption allegedly perpetrated by the Prime Minister, based on documents he had in his possession and that formed the basis of the Vohra Committee report. In this letter he asked the President to ask the Prime Minister to step down and face an investigation against the charges. In late 1993, Rangarajan resigned as Cabinet Minister. In May 1995, Rangarajan resigned from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress and along with Arjun Singh,

N.D. Tiwari Narayan Datt Tiwari (18 October 1925 – 18 October 2018) was an Indian politician who served as the 9th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and 3rd Chief Minister of Uttarakhand from 2002 to 2007. He was first Indian Chief Minister who served for ...

Sheila Dikshit Sheila Dikshit () (née Kapoor; 31 March 1938 – 20 July 2019) was an Indian politician. The longest-serving Chief Minister of Delhi, as well as the longest-serving female chief minister of any Indian state, she served for a period of 15 yea ...

and others, founded the Congress(T). However, Rangarajan lost his seat in the 1996 Parliamentary elections during which his new party suffered a crushing defeat. In December 1997, Rangarajan joined the

. He won from the

Lok Sabha constituency in 1998 and 1999 and became one of the torch-bearers of the BJP in

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 ...

. He served with distinction as the Union Minister for Power and Parliamentary Affairs, holding additional charge of Law, Justice and Company Affairs, and Mines, in the

Second Vajpayee Ministry Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister of India for second time on 19 March 1998. Here is the list of ministers in his ministry. Council of ministers Cabinet ministers Ministers of State E ...

from 1998 to 1999 and in the

Third Vajpayee Ministry Atal Bihari Vajpayee was sworn in as Prime Minister of India for third time on 13 October 1999. He headed his Third Vajpayee Ministry. Here is the list of ministers in his ministry. Cabinet ministers ...

from 1999 until his death in 2000.

Death

Rangarajan died on 23 August 2000 at the

All India Institute of Medical Sciences The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes ha ...

at the age of 48 as a result of acute myeloid leukaemia (blood cancer).An inexorable course
– a medical history At the time of his death, he was the Power Minister in the then A. B. Vajpayee ministry. He was cremated with full state honours on the same day.

References

Ranga cremated with full state honours, Rediff.com, 23 August 2000

* [http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/sep/22inter.htm 'I think some poison had entered his body, and was eating up his body' Rediff.com interview with Kitty Kumaramangalam, wife of Rangarajan Kumaramangalam on 22 September 2000]*
BJP fields Lalitha Kumaramangalam from Pondicherry, Yahoo News, 21 February 2004

Footnotes

External links