Jayanthi Natarajan

Jayanthi Natarajan Biography

Jayanthi Natarajan is a famous politician of Indian National Congress from Tamil Nadu. She served as Union Minister of State, Minister of Forests and Environment for a couple of years since 2011. She has been elected as Member of Parliament thrice from Tamil Nadu. She has worked as a newscaster for Doordarshan Kendra, Chennai for a brief period. Noted social worker, Sarojini Varadappan is her aunt and famous congress politician M. Bakthavatsalam is her grandfather. She is the congress woman for Tamil Nadu state at all occasions. She was introduced to active politics by late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1980’s. Her screen presence is always seen in programs and debates on television channels.

She was born in 1954 in Chennai to Dr. C R Sundararajan and Rukmini Sundararajan. Her grandfather M. Bakthavatsalam is a prominent Congress politician who was the last congress Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Her education was completed at Chennai. She took Bachelor of Law from Madras Law College and has also practiced as a lawyer. She also did pro bono work for several social organizations and newscaster of Doordarshan. She was introduced to politics and congress party by Rajiv Gandhi. Since then she has remained close to Nehru family.

She was first elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1986 and for the second time in 1992. In the late 1990’s when Congress leadership under Narasimha Rao decided to form an alignment with AIADMK, led by Jayalalitha, Jayanthi resigned from the Rajya Sabha. Then she joined hands with veteran party leader G. K. Moopanar to form Tamil Manila Congress. When the TMC merged with the Congress after Moopanar’s death, she returned to the parent party.

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Updated: April 25, 2014