5 Facts About Dayanidhi Maran, DMK's Chennai Central Candidate

Dayanidhi Maran was born on December 5, 1966, to former Union Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran and Mallika Maran. He is also the grandnephew of M Karunanidhi, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Dayanidhi Maran completed his schooling in Chennai's Don Bosco, Egmore, and pursued his undergraduate studies in Economics at Loyola College.

In 2004, Dayanidhi Maran contested the Lok Sabha elections from Central Chennai Constituency as a DMK candidate. He won by a significant margin of over 1.3 lakh votes. He was Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology in the UPA government. He introduced the "One Rupee One India" plan allowing calls across the country at a rate of Re 1 per minute.

He won again in 2009, defeating Mogamed Ali Jinnah SMK of the AIADMK by a margin of over 33,00 votes. However, in 2014, he lost to SR Vijayakumar of the AIADMK by over 45,000 votes. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Dayanidhi Maran once again contested from the Chennai Central constituency, winning for the third time.

Dayanidhi Maran's name cropped up in the Aircel Maxis case. Mr Maran, who was the telecom minister between 2004 and 2007, was accused of coercing C Sivasankaran, then owner of Aircel Cellular Limited, to sell the company to Malaysia-based Maxis Communications. A special CBI court acquitted Dayanidhi Maran and his brother Sun Group MD Kalanithi Maran of all charges.

Mr Maran was in the headlines recently after he dismissed the threat posed by BJP and its Tamil Nadu chief K Annamalai. On being asked if Mr Annamalai is a rising star in the state, Dayanidhi Maran said, "Who's that? Oh, the joker, you are talking about the joker... he is a lame-duck." On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked Dayanidhi Maran over the remarks and said it showed the arrogance of the DMK. "DMK is a party that is immersed in the arrogance of power. When a senior leader of DMK was asked about our young leader Annamalai, he said in arrogance 'who is he, who is that' and used insulting words. This arrogance is against Tamil Nadu's great culture. The people of Tamil Nadu will never like this arrogance," PM Modi said at a rally in Coimbatore. K Annamalai is the BJP candidate for the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat.