Former Tamil Nadu legislator Kovai Selvaraj dies of cardiac arrest

Former MLA Kovai K. Selvaraj, with a political career in Congress, AIADMK, and DMK, passed away in Tirupati.

Former MLA Kovai K. Selvaraj, who had a political career in the Congress, AIADMK and DMK, died in Tirupati on Friday.

Sources close to his family said that Mr. Selvaraj suffered a cardiac arrest in Tirupati, where he had gone along with the family for his son’s wedding on Friday. Though he was rushed to a hospital, he was declared brought dead.

Mr. Selvaraj started his political career in the Congress and became the MLA of the erstwhile Coimbatore West constituency in 1991. He was expelled from the party in June 2015, after he made a public appeal that the Congress should back the AIADMK in the R.K. Nagar by-election, when the then AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa contested.

Mr. Selvaraj later joined the AIADMK and became Coimbatore Urban district secretary, besides serving as one of the spokespersons of the party. When the AIADMK split into two factions after the death of Jayalalithaa, Mr. Selvaraj stood with O. Panneerselvam and raised his voice against the leadership of Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

His stint in the AIADMK ended in December 2022 when he joined the DMK, where he was promoted to the deputy secretary of the party’s media wing in April 2023.

Sources added that Mr. Selvaraj’s body would be brought to his residence in Coimbatore on Saturday.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin expressed shock over the death of former legislator and DMK spokesperson Kovai Selvaraj and extended his condolences.