BS Gnanadesikan, a senior leader of the Tamil Maanila Congress Party and former MP, passed away in Chennai aged 71 due to ill health. He was elected twice as a State MP from Tamil Nadu from 2001 to 2013. He was the leader of the Tamil Nadu Congress Party from 2011 to 2014.
Gnanadesikan belonged to a family of lawyers and hailed from Vathalakundu. He went on to become a lawyer himself after graduating from Madras Law College. He worked as a junior to N.C. Raghavachari, the advocate of late Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran.
He was a loyalist of late Congress leader GK Moopanar and later supported Moopanar’s son GK Vasan. Gnanadesikan was elected to Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu twice in 2001 and 2007. When GK Vasan started the Tamil Maanila Congress Party, he merged both the TNCC and the TMC and served as its President. He served as the President of TNCC for two terms between 2009 and 2014.
Gnanadesikan was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu both in 2001 and 2007. He was a member of many parliamentary committees on various departments – defence, finance, labour, water resources, fertilizers and chemicals and home affairs.
BS Gnanadesikan, who was suffering from poor health, was admitted to the Apollo Hospital in Chennai on November 11. Gnanadesikan passed away yesterday after suffering a severe cardiac arrest. Condolences from across parties have been pouring in.