M. Gunasekaran (born 3 June 1962) is an Indian politician and has twice been elected as aMember of the Legislative Assembly ofTamil Nadu from theManamadurai constituency.
Gunasekaran was born inNelmadur on 3 June 1962. He has a BA degree and is married with three children.[1]
Gunasekaran lists agriculture as his occupation. A study comparing sworn election affidavits for members of theTamil Nadu Legislative Assembly who had won their seats in the2006 elections and were standing as candidates inthose of 2011 revealed that Gunasekaran had recorded the biggest percentage increase in assets. The increase was 3396 per cent.[2]
In June 2014, Gunasekaran was hospitalised, with police saying his condition was "highly critical", after being attacked by several people while talking with a group of friends inManamadurai. Police said that the attack happened after a heated discussion with one of the attackers regarding property rights.[3][4]
Gunasekaran was first elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly as anAll India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) candidate from Manamadurai constituency in the 2006 elections. The constituency is reserved for candidates from theScheduled Castes.[5] He was particularly active in asking questions in the house, raising 16,057 queries during the13th Assembly,[6] and was re-elected from the same constituency at the next election, in 2011.[7]
Theelections of 2016 resulted in his constituency being won by the AIADMK'sS. Mariappankennady,[8] who the party had determined should replace Gunasekaran.[9]
In January 2017, Gunasekaran announced that he could not work with the current AIADMK leadership, who he said wanted to encouragedynastic politics. He had been a strong supporter ofJayalalithaa, the AIADMK leader andChief Minister who had recently died, and preferred to supportDeepa Jayakumar, Jayalalithaa's niece, in her bid to head the party. He said that he had been a supporter of AIADMK since 1987 and that his decision to favour Jayakumar's aspirations was backed by many thousands of AIADMK people inSivaganga district, in which the Manamadurai constituency is situated. He felt the new leadership was being unfair in its allocation of party positions in the district.[10]