After two decades, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won 4 seats – Nagercoil, Modakurichi, Tirunelveli and Coimbatore South – in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections.
MR Gandhi, the winning candidate from Nagercoil, is a well known face in the Kanyakumari district. He is an RSS worker and was the district president of Jan Sangh. He became the state secretary of the party in 1975. He was one of the prominent faces from Tamil Nadu to oppose the fascist Emergency regime of the Congress under Indira Gandhi. He was jailed under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA) at that time. There have been multiple attempts on his life. He managed to escape the Mandaikadu Christian attacks on Hindus. In December 2006, when he was returning from a coastal village after a meeting at night, he was survived a murderous attack by a mob of Islamists, who threatened to burn him alive. He was again attacked by Islamists in April 2013 when he was going for his morning walk.
Nainar Nagendhran is the Vice President of BJP Tamil Nadu and has won from Tirunelveli constituency. He left the AIADMK in 2017 to join the BJP. He has been earlier elected as MLA from the same constituency in Tirunelveli in 2001 and 2011. He had served as Minister for Electricity, Industry and Transport during the AIADMK-led government of 2001–2006.
Dr. C.K. Saraswathi, the winning candidate from Modakurichi is a doctor by profession. She is known for offering free knee surgeries to the poor and needy.
Vanathi Srinivasan, the National President of BJP’s Mahila Morcha (women’s wing) emerged victorious taking on actor-politician Kamal Haasan of MNM at the Coimbatore South constituency. She became the BJP Tamil Nadu unit’s Vice President following the appointment of new office bearers in July 2020. A lawyer by profession, Vanathi Srinivasan’s entry into politics began with Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP. She was the State Secretary of BJP Tamil Nadu from 2009 to 2014 and the General Secretary of 2014 to 2020. She was appointed as the State Vice President in July 2020. She contested in 2011 & 2016 Tamil Nadu State Assembly election as BJP candidate. She secured 33,113 votes in the Coimbatore South Constituency during the Assembly Election 2016.
In Tamil Nadu, the BJP won one seat in the 1996 assembly elections. Next, in the 2001 elections, the BJP which was in alliance with the DMK back then, won four constituencies. In the ensuing elections, the BJP did not even get a seat.
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