Sandalwood Smuggler Veerappan's Daughter Vidya Rani Joins BJP

Vidya Rani, daughter of infamous sandalwood Smuggler Veerappan murdered by Tamil Nadu police,  joined the Bhartiya Janta Party during an event that saw participation from 1000 members on Saturday in the state's Krishnagiri district, reported ANI.  She joined the party in the presence of party general secretary Muralidhar Rao and former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan.

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"I want to work for the poor and underprivileged irrespective of their caste and religion. PM Modi's schemes are for the people and I want to take them to the people," said Vidya. The 1000 members, including Rani joined BJP during this event. The 29-year-old social activist told The New Indian Express that she had been contemplating joining the political party for the last two years. "Ever since my meeting with former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan two years ago, when he asked me to join the party and serve the people, I have been contemplating this move," she said.

“We will utilise her properly,” BJP state secretary KS Narendran told TNIE. “Her post will be decided later.”

Who is Vidya Rani?

Rani is a lawyer who also actively raises issues that are negatively impacting society. She runs a tuition centre in Krishnagiri since 2018 to support students get better access to education. Talking to a regional daily, she said that her father also wanted to serve the people but the path he chose to do it was wrong. She has been in the news due to her marriage with her boyfriend. She moved the court to let her marry the person she wanted after her mother, Muthulakshmi objected to it.

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Her Father - Veerappan

Veerappan functioned actively from the jungles of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka for more than three-and-a-half decades. He was known to be the Robin Hood of the locals. He poached over 20 elephants and smuggled ivory worth hundreds of crore of rupees and killed more than 180 people, mostly police and forest officials.

"Ever since my meeting with former Union Minister Pon Radhakrishnan two years ago, when he asked me to join the party and serve the people, I have been contemplating this move."

In 2004, the Tamil Nadu police formed a special task force to nab Veerappan and in the October of the same year, the special task force killed him along with two of his aides Sethukuli Govindan and Chandre Gowda. The entire episode around this operation leading to the killing of one of the most dreaded dacoits in the history of South India led police officer K Vijay Kumar, who headed the special team, to write a book on the operation. Well-known director Ram Gopal Verma also made a Kannada docudrama Killing Veerappan on his story in 2016 which he also remade in Hindi. The real-life story of Veerappan also became case studies for the roles of Varma’s Jungle (2000) and Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan (2010).

Picture Credit- Metro Journal Online