Veteran Congress leader Kumari Ananthan, 92, a Gandhian and a renowned orator passed away in Chennai on Wednesday due to age-related illness. He is survived by his son and four daughters, including BJP politician Tamilisai Soundararajan, who was the governor of Telangana.
A crusader of the use of Tamil in Parliament, he succeeded in his fight to address the Parliament in his mother tongue. Kumari Ananthan was passionate and his Tamil oratory skills were such that he dedicated his life to celebrating the glory of the language. In recognition of his contributions to the Tamil language and Tamil Nadu, the DMK government, in August 2024, honoured him with the ‘Thagaisal Tamizhar' (Eminent Tamil) award along with a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh.
Born in Kanyakumari, he was a Gandhian and undertook several padayatras, advocating for total prohibition. Ananthan, who was a staunch Congressman, served as the president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee from 1995 to 1997, when the party suffered a vertical split in the state. He was very close to former Tamil Nadu chief minister K Kamaraj.
In 1995, when prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao decided to forge an alliance with Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK, senior leaders like G.K. Moopanar broke away from the Congress party. Leaders like P. Chidambaram and M. Arunachalam, who were part of Rao’s cabinet, also opposed this and walked away from the Congress. Ananthan chose to stay back in the party despite all odds.
However, later he formed his own outfits twice—first in the name of Gandhi and Kamaraj and later in the name of cadres. He called it Gandhi Kamaraj National Congress and later as Thondar Congress only to go back to the parent party.
He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Nagercoil constituency (now Kanyakumari) in 1977. He also served as an MLA four times in 1980, 1984, 1989 and 1991, from Thiruvottiyur and Santhankulam constituencies.