M. K. Alagiri facts for kids

Quick facts for kids M. K. Alagiri
Alagiri in June 2009
Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers
In office 28 May 2009 – 21 March 2013
President	Pratibha Patil Pranab Mukherjee
Prime Minister	Manmohan Singh
Preceded by	Ram Vilas Paswan
Succeeded by	Srikant Kumar Jena, MoS (I/C)
Constituency	Madurai
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
In office 1 June 2009 – 18 May 2014
Leader of the House	Pranab Mukherjee Sushilkumar Shinde
Preceded by	P. Mohan
Succeeded by	R. Gopalkrishnan
Constituency	Madurai
Personal details
Born	Muthuvel Karunanidhi Alagiri (1951-01-30) 30 January 1951 (age 73) Madras, Madras State, India (present-day Chennai, Tamil Nadu)
Political party	Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (until 2000 & 2001 - 2014)
Spouse	Kanthi Alagiri (m. 1972)
Relations	• M. K. Selvi (younger sister) • M. K. Stalin (younger brother) • M. K. Tamilarasu (younger brother)
Children	Dayanidhi Azhagiri Anjugaselvi Kayalvizhi
Parents	Karunanidhi Dayalu Ammal
Residences	Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India

Muthuvel Karunanidhi Alagiri (born 30 January 1951), commonly known as M. K. Alagiri, is an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu and was a Union Cabinet Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers from 28 May 2009 to 20 March 2013. He is the second son of the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi and his second wife Dayalu Ammal and the head of South Zone of Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (up to 2014).

Early life

Alagiri is the second son of former chief minister of Tamil Nadu M. Karunanidhi and his second wife Dayalu Ammal. He is believed to have spent his early life under the tutelage of his father and after his marriage on 10 December 1972, settled in Madurai. His wife is Kanthi Alagiri and they have three children, two daughters Kayalvizhi and Anjugaselvi, and a son, Dayanidhi Azhagiri. Alagiri graduated from the Presidency College in Chennai with a B.A. degree.

Role in Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

Karunanidhi always appeared to prefer his younger son, M. K. Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Alagiri shifted his base to Madurai during 1989 and did not hold any post officially in the party. In spite of holding no posts, he was all in command in the Madurai region and senior leaders in the party were unhappy about the factionalism created within the party. The DMK general secretary, K. Anbazhagan, in 2001, directed the party men not to have any contact with Alagiri. During the period of 2008, Alagiri was instrumental in the party winning three by-elections, the notable of which was Thirumangalam, where the party won with a massive difference. Based on the victory, Alagiri was appointed as the organizing secretary of the party for southern districts. Following the by-poll victories in the state, Alagiri was given the ticket for Madurai Lok Sabha Constituency in 2009 general elections, which he won eventually and later went on to become a cabinet minister.

There were widespread fights between the supporters of Alagiri and Stalin frequently. The succession crisis came out to a peak when party members loyal to Alagiri attacked the Madurai office of Dinakaran and set it to fire, in which three staff were killed. Dinakaran is a part of the Sun TV group owned by Kalanidhi Maran (son of Murasoli Maran), the grand-nephew of Karunanidhi. The newspaper published a higher prominence for Stalin over Azhagiri.

He was removed from the DMK party as member and as Secretary, South Zone on 24 January 2014.

Elections contested

Tenure as Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers

Azhagiri Sworn as minister

Azhagiri was appointed as the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers in the Union Cabinet, following UPA victory in the 2009 Indian Parliamentary Elections. He won his elections from the Madurai parliamentary constituency securing 430,688 votes against his next competitor P. Mohan from CPM, who secured 290,157 votes. During his early tenure, he requested the speaker of Lok Sabha to allow him to answer in Tamil, while senior Lok Sabha officials wanted him to answer in English or Hindi following precedents. Jena, the State minister of the ministry, answered all the questions raised in the parliament on behalf of Azhagiri. There were protests by the opposition party members in the Lok sabha during the Budget session in 2010 over the absence of Azhagiri. In January 2013, the Union minister of state for the Chemical and Industry ministry, Srikanth Kumar Jena, accused Azhagiri of inaction as a senior minister, in the alleged misuse of government subsidies by the fertiliser companies. He accused Azhagiri of not responding to any of his five letters he wrote to his senior colleague between March and August 2012. In his letters, he complained that the fertiliser companies, in spite of utilizing one third of the subsidies provided to the farmers, kept raising the prices of the fertilisers. Following the irregularities quoted by Jena, there were allegations by certain section of media of a possible scam to an extent of ₹1,000 crores in the fertiliser ministry. There were also allegations of nexus between the corrupt official in the ministry with the fertiliser companies, who together dictated the government policy on fertilizers.

DMK pulled out of the ruling UPA on 20 March 2013 following widespread protests in Tamil Nadu against the central government for not taking up the concerns of Tamils in Sri Lanka in the UN resolution against the alleged human rights violation against Tamils by Sri Lankan government. Azhagiri resigned from his ministry along with other ministers from DMK. There was a brief controversy when Azhagiri did not accompany the contingency led by T.R. Baalu, the head of MPs from the DMK party, to tender resignation in the Prime minister's office and to hand over the letter of withdrawal to the President on 20 March 2013. It was claimed as a mark of protest against his father Karunanidhi's decision to pull out from the central ministry. Some sources claim he delayed his resignation as he was not kept in the loop while taking the decision. Following his resignation, Srikanth Jena was appointed the minister of Chemical and Fertilizers.

See also

• Karunanidhi family