Nilgiris: As the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu registered a sweeping win in the Lok Sabha election 2024 results in the state, party candidate for Nilgiris seat Raja A won the seat defeating Dr Murugan L of the BJP with a massive margin of 240585 votes.
As per the ECI data, Raja secured 473212 votes while Murugan L secured 232627 votes. AIADMK candidate Logesh Tamilselvan D ended up as the 2nd runner up with 220230 votes.
Raja, who contested the Nilgiri Parliamentary Constituency in the last parliamentary elections held in 2009 and 2019, was again contesting in that constituency.
A Raja, DMK's deputy general secretary and key face of DMK, was elected thrice from the Perambalur parliamentary constituency and twice from the Nilgiris parliamentary constituency.
In 1999, he took charge as the Minister of Rural Development in Vajpayee's cabinet. He served as Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare in 2000, Minister of Environment and Forests in 2004 and Minister of Telecommunication and Information Technology in 2007.
In 2009, he was again appointed as the Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology and was accused in the 2G spectrum case and imprisoned. Later he was acquitted in 2017 from that case.
Union Minister of State L Murugan is contesting against A. Raja, who is currently contesting for the fourth term from the Nilgiris parliamentary constituency.
L.Murugan: Union Minister L. Murugan is contesting from the Nilgiris Parliamentary Constituency in the 18th Lok Sabha Election held in Tamil Nadu.
L. Murugan, who contested from the Dharapuram Assembly constituency in the last legislative assembly election held in 2021 and lost, is now contesting from the Nilgiris parliamentary constituency.
Since 1997, L. Murugan, who has been in charge of various positions of the BJP, has been serving as the President of the National SC & ST Commission. L. Murugan, who was subsequently appointed as the state president of the BJP in Tamil Nadu in 2020, contested the 2021 assembly election from the Dharapuram assembly constituency in Tirupur district and lost.
Subsequently, in July 2021, he assumed the position of Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairy. In this situation, L. Murugan, who was re-elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, and announced as the candidate for the Nilgiris parliamentary constituency in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
L. Murugan is contesting against former Union Minister A. Raja has already won there on behalf of DMK. The Nilgiris parliamentary constituency is seen as a nationally important constituency as former Union Minister A Raja and sitting Union Minister of State L. Murugan are contesting from the same constituency.
2024 voting: The total number of registered voters in this constituency in 2024 polls was 1428387, and the seat saw a voting turnout of 70.95% (1013410 total count of votes), according to the Election Commission’s data. The seat went to polls in phase 1 on April 19, 2024.
In the 2019 LS Polls, A Raja of DMK won from Nilgiris, getting 547,832 votes, comprising 54.20% of the total number of votes polled. He defeated Thiyagarajan, M. of AIADMK by a margin of 205823 votes. In 2014, Gopalakrishnan, C. of AIADMK had won from this seat, polling 463,700 votes (49.70%) and defeating A Raja by a margin of 104940 votes.
