S Jagathrashakan: DMK Candidate From Arakkonam Constituency

S Jagathrashakan, an Indian Tamil businessman and politician is fielded as the DMK candidate from Arakkonam constituency. He has been a member of the Lok Sabha from the same constituency and was elected thrice since 1999. Jagathrashakan is one of the first political leaders to establish a professional college. He started the Bharath Institute of Science and Technology in 1984 which later came to be known as Bharat University.

During his political career, he was elected to the Tamil state assembly during the 1980 elections and to the Lok Sabha during 1984 election from ADMK party. He has also headed the ADMK parliamentary party. He has been the center of many controversies in various issues including coal scams. The DMK leader was alleged to have utilized his political clout for illegal coal allocation for his company in 2007. It is believed that he has amassed assets from 5 Crore in 2009 to 70 crores in 2011.

After the death of MGR, he sided with the ADMK faction headed by MGR’s wife Janaki and RM Veerappan. During the 1999 parliamentary election, he got the DMK ticket through RM Veerappan’s MGR Kazhagam and won from the Arakkonam constituency. Later in 2004, he started a Vanniyar caste-based party called Veera Vanniyar Peravai which was later in August renamed Jananayaga Munnetra Kazhagam. And later the party was merged with DMK.

There are several allegations against the DMK leader. He is alleged to have garnered a distillery license using his political clout during his second tenure as MP in 1999. There were also allegations of the discrepancy of age in his election affidavit and his university website. After becoming a minister of information and broadcasting, there were allegations that he was trying to float a TV channel and an English newspaper, both of which were not established.
Jagarthrashakan has also served as the Minister of state, information and broadcasting, News and Renewable energy and, Commerce and Industry.