Chennai
Thol Thirumavalavan rose to prominence as a Dalit leader in 1990 and entered politics in 1999. His political platform aims at eliminating the caste-based oppression of the Dalits. He is also a Tamil activist and MP in the 15th Lok Sabha. He is a supporter of Tamil nationalist movements especially in Sri Lanka.
The Dalit leader was born in Anganur, Ariyalur district. He got his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry, Master’s in Criminology. He also studied law at Madras Law College.
He contested from Chidambaram (SC) parliamentary constituency in 1999 and secured 31.17% votes. However, he lost to PMK’s candidate Ponnusamy with a margin of 1,19,563 votes. Later, he contested in 2001 Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections from Mangalur (SC) constituency in alliance with DMK and won against the TMC candidate with a margin of mere 1855 votes. During the parliamentary elections in 2004, he contested from Chidambaram (SC) constituency and again lost to PMK’s Ponnusamy. He defeated Ponnusamy later in the 2009 Parliamentary elections from the same constituency with a margin of 99,341 votes and became the Member of the Parliament.
VCK, part of the four party-People’s Welfare Front found it safe to field Thirumavalavan from the reserved constituency Kattumannarkoil (SC) as the party had previously performed well in 2014. Thirumavalavan is contesting the Assembly Elections after 15 long years. This time against the sitting MLA of AIADMK, N Murugumaran, Dr. K I Manirathinam of INC, SP Saravanan of BJP and PMK’s Anbu Chozhan. VCK’s D Ravikumar served as an MLA of this constituency in 2006 but later, he lost the 2011 elections.
Winning parties in the constituency (1977-2011):
DMK – 4 (2001, 1996, 1980 and 1977)
AIADMK – 2 (2011 and 1991)
VCK – 1 (2006)
INC – 1 (1984)
Independent – 1 (1989)
Compiled by: V Mani
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