veerapan-s-daughter-vidhya-joins-electoral-politics-will-contest-from-krishnagiri-ls-seat-in-tamil-nadu

Vidhya Veerappan, the 33-year-old daughter of Veerappan, who was a household name in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, will take part in electoral politics.

 

She has decided to contest from Krishnagiri Lok Sabha constituency after being nominated from Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK), a Tamil nationalist outfit, which she had joined after quitting the Bharatiya Janata Party.

 

“Her father was there to protect the forests; Vindya will now work towards protecting the (Tamil) race,” Seeman, the chief of NTK announced at a public rally in Chennai.

 

Krishnagiri is a diverse constituency. People from this place speak at least five languages including Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Urdu.

Vidhya is a lawyer by profession, who completed a five-year law course from a college in Bengaluru. At present, she runs a school in Krishnagiri, where she has been staying for the past nine years.

 

Although Seeman’s several policies sound illogical, NTK has acceptance among the locals which has developed with time.

 

In 2016, the party’s vote share was 1.1 per cent which increased to 4 per cent in 2019. In 2021, it was 6.7 per cent in the assembly polls. This proves that the party has come a long way in emerging as the third largest party of Tamil Nadu in terms of vote share.

 

Vidhya had met her father Veerappan only once when she was in third standard at her grandfather’s house in Gopinatham.

 

“I met my father when I was in Class III. In a brief conversation of around 30 minutes, he asked me to pursue medicine and serve the people,” said Vindya, who joined the BJP in 2020.

 

Veerappan was killed by the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) on October 18, 2004, in an encounter. He earned his name as the notorious sandalwood smuggler who poached elephants, kidnapped high-profile people like Kannada Thespian Raj Kumar and former minister Nagappa, and killed policemen and others who tried to stop him.

 

Known for disseminating terror, ran an empire along the Sathyamangalam forests, spread across Erode and Mysore districts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, respectively.