Dr. A. Chellakumar is an Indian politician and

Member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

. He was elected to the

Tamil Nadu legislative assembly The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It has a strength of 234 members of whom are democratically elected using the First-past-the-post system. The presiding officer of the Assembl ...

as an

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

(INC) candidate from Anna Nagar constituency in the 1991 election and as a

Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) The Tamil Maanila Congress (Moopanar) (; TMC(M)) is an Indian regional political party in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is founded by the former Member of Parliament of the Republic of India G. K. Moopanar on 29 March 1996 as a breakaway ...

(TMC) candidate from T. Nagar constituency in the 1996 election. He was unsuccessful in winning the Villivakkam constituency in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

. and in the 2011 election he attempted once again to gain the T. Nagar seat. His candidacy in 2001 was as a TMC member and in 2011 it was for the INC. He was runner-up on both occasions. Although he had joined the TMC breakaway group in 1996 when factionalism beset the INC due to a decision to ally with the

All Indian Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (; AIADMK) is an Indian Regionalism (politics), regional political party with great influence in the Federated state, state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry (union territory) ...

(AIADMK) in the state, Chellakumar subsequently fell out with TMC founder

G. K. Moopanar Govindaswamy Karuppiah Moopanar (19 August 1931 – 30 August 2001) known as G. K. Moopanar was a Tamil Nadu Congress Committee leader, parliamentarian, and social worker.He was served as Member of the Rajya Sabha , president of Tamil Nadu Con ...

. His career then stalled for some years until, seen as a neutral figure with the INC, into which the TMC had re-merged, he was one of three people appointed as a secretary to the Tamil Nadu

All India Congress Committee The All India Congress Committee (AICC) is the presidium or the central decision-making assembly of the Indian National Congress. It is composed of members elected from state-level Pradesh Congress Committees and can have as many as a thousan ...

in 2013. Chellakumar unsuccessfully contested the

Krishnagiri Lok Sabha constituency Krishnagiri is a Lok Sabha (Parliament of India) constituency in Tamil Nadu. Its Tamil Nadu Parliamentary Constituency number is 9 of 39. Assembly segments 2009–present Before 2009 #Hosur # Thalli # Kaveripattinam (defunct) # Krishnagi ...

for the INC in the

2014 elections The following elections occurred in the year 2014. * 2014 United Nations Security Council election 16 October 2014 Africa * 2014 Algerian presidential election 17 April 2014 * 2014 Botswana general election 24 October 2014 * 2014 Comorian presi ...

for the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameralism, bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the R ...

, where he finished in a distant fourth place. A major reorganisation of the INC was thought to be necessary following its worst-ever defeat in those elections and as part of that process Chellakumar replaced

Digvijaya Singh Digvijaya Singh (born 28 February 1947) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He is Ex-General Secretary of the Indian National Congress party's All India Congress Committee. Previously, he had served as the ...

in April 2017 as the person in charge of the party's affairs in Goa. He was considered at that time to be close to

Rahul Gandhi Rahul Gandhi ( ; born 19 June 1970) is an Indian politician and a member of the Indian Parliament, representing the constituency of Wayanad, Kerala in the 17th Lok Sabha. A member of the Indian National Congress, he served as the president of ...

, the son of party president

Sonia Gandhi Sonia Gandhi (''née'' Maino; born 9 December 1946) is an Indian politician. She is the longest serving president of the Indian National Congress, a social democratic political party, which has governed India for most of its post-independe ...

and vice president of party. In the

2019 elections The following elections were scheduled to occur in 2019. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems has a calendar of upcoming elections around the world, and the National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections in coun ...

, he contested again from the Krishnagiri constituency and was elected as a member of Parliament. He is highly known for his simplicity and connectivity with poor people. He is more popularly called 'Doctor' by people.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chellakumar, A. Indian National Congress politicians from Tamil Nadu Tamil Maanila Congress politicians Living people Tamil Nadu MLAs 1996–2001 United Progressive Alliance candidates in the 2014 Indian general election Year of birth missing (living people) India MPs 2019–2024 Tamil Nadu MLAs 1991–1996