The first Bharatiya Janata Party member to be elected to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly, C. Velayuthan, passed away at his hometown in Kanyakumari district Wednesday at the age of 73.Velayuthan, who was elected to the state assembly to represent the Padmanabhapuram constituency in 1996, had been undergoing treatment for diabetes and other old age-related ailments for a long time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to offer his condolences. “It is people like him who have built our party in Tamil Nadu and explained our development agenda to the people. He will also be remembered for his concern for the poor and downtrodden,” he wrote on X.
Velayuthan, who was also a social activist from the Kanyakumari region, had first contested elections from the Padmanabhapuram assembly constituency in 1989, and secured fourth position with 18.26 percent of the vote.
Senior BJP leaders in Kanyakumari recalled that he belonged to a poor family and had to secure a loan to meet the election expenses back then. “He was popular among the locals in Padmanabhapuram. For the first election, he managed to sell his land and secure loans to meet the expenses,” said Sajayan, a BJP member.
In 1991, he contested for the second time and secured 23 percent of the voted. It was only in 1996 that he was able to win the seat with 31.76 percent of the vote, pushing Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham candidate Bala Janathipathy to the second position.