Durai Murugan

Durai Murugan (born 1 July 1938) is an Indian politician and lawyer from Tamil Nadu. He was Minister for Water Resources under the Government of Tamil Nadu (2021-2026) and has held ministerial posts in previous governments lead by the DMK. He is the general secretary of the DMK since 9 September 2020. He graduated in MA and BL and is an advocate by profession. He is a very close confidant to former DMK Supremo M. Karunanidhi and his son DMK President M. K. Stalin. He also worked as Treasurer, Principal Secretary and Deputy General secretary of the DMK party.

Durai Murugan was first elected to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly in 1971 and has been elected ten times since. He was elected from the Katpadi constituency in 2006. After the 2006 assembly elections, Durai Murugan was appointed Minister for Public Works in the Government of Tamil Nadu.

He was divested of the Public Works Department portfolio on 13 July 2009.

He was re-elected from the Katpadi constituency in the elections of 2016.

He currently resides in Kotturpuram, Chennai. He was born in 1938 in Gudiyatham, North Arcot, Madras Presidency (now Vellore District, Tamil Nadu) to Duraisamy and Thavasi Ammal. He belongs to the Vanniyar community, a numerically-large caste found throughout Northern Tamil Nadu. He is married to Santhakumari and has one son, Kathir Anand, who has served as the MP from Vellore since 2019.

Elections contested and results Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Elections Year ConstituencyParty Votes % OpponentOpponent Party Opponent Votes % Result Margin % 1971 Katpadi 37,487 57.79 Dhandayuthapani 20,919 32.25 16,568 25.54 1977Ranipet 31,940 43.53 Wahab K.A. 16,643 22.68 15,297 20.85 1980 44,318 53.70 Renu. N 37,064 44.91 7,254 8.79 1984Katpadi 36,839 39.62 G. Ragupathi 53,077 57.08 -16,238 -17.46 1989 43,181 43.41 Margabandu R 23,344 23.47 19,837 19.94 1991 36,866 33.02 K.M. Kalaiselvi 63,005 56.43 -26,139 -23.41 1996 75,439 61.20 Pandurangan.K 34,432 27.93 41,007 33.27 2001 64,187 49.47 Natarajan A.K. 56,185 43.30 8,002 6.17 2006 86,824 57.45 Narayanan.B 51,677 34.19 35,147 23.26 2011 75,064 49.55Appu S.R.K 72,091 47.59 2,973 1.96 2016 90,534 50.90 66,588 37.44 23,946 13.46 2021 85,140 46.18 V Ramu 84,394 45.78 746 0.40 2026 62,225 30.63 Dr. M. Sudhakar 69,868 34.40 -7,643 -3.77