K. A. Sengottaiyan

Kullampalayam Arthanari Sengottaiyan (born 9 January 1948), better known as K. A. Sengottaiyan, is an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu. He is currently the chief coordinator of the high level administrative committee of Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK). He has had a long political career spanning over five decades, primarily with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). He was expelled from the AIADMK and later joined the TVK in November 2025.

Sengottaiyan was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, for the first time during the 1977 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election from Sathyamangalam constituency. He was elected to the assembly a record nine times, including eight times from the Gobichettipalayam constituency. He has served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 2025, except for a period between 1996 to 2006. In the 16th Tamil Nadu Assembly, he was the longest serving member of the assembly along with Durai Murugan. In 1992, he falsely claimed that the violence in the Vachathi case, where police and forest officials committed brutal atrocities against villagers, was fabricated. He also allegedly attempted to disrupt the identification parade meant to identify the perpetrators.

Sengottaiyan has held various portfolios as a minister in the Tamil Nadu Government. He served as the minister of transport from 1991 to 1996, minister of agriculture in 2011, minister of Information Technology from 2011 to 2012, and minister of revenue in 2012 under the chief minister-ship of J. Jayalalithaa. He later served as the minister of school education and youth welfare and sports development from May 2017 to May 2021 in the Palaniswami ministry.

Sengottaiyan served as the leader of the house in the Tamil Nadu assembly from February 2017 to January 2018. He also served as the deputy leader of opposition two times. He has also held various leadership positions with the AIADMK.

Political Career

AIADMK (1972 – 2025)

Sengottaiyan was elected as Member of the Legislative Assembly to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly as an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) candidate from Sathyamangalam constituency in 1977 election and from Gobichettipalayam constituency in 1980, 1984, 1989 (Jayalalitha faction), 1991, 2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021 in Erode district. He allegedly punched Karunanidhi in his face during a violent clash in the assembly in 1989.

Sengottaiyan was the minister for transport from 1991 to 1996 during the first cabinet of Jayalalithaa. In 2000, he was convicted in two different corruption cases by the a Central Bureau of Investigation court for criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust involving misappropriation of transport Department funds related to his role as the minister. He was sentenced to four and five years of rigorous imprisonment in the cases respectively and given a fine of ₹0.105 million (US$1,200). Because of these convictions, he was disqualified from contesting the 2001 Assembly elections. In February 2005, he was acquitted by the Madras High Court in both the cases. In November 2006, the Supreme Court of India declined to interfere with the High Court's judgment as the appeal of the Government of Tamil Nadu was filed with a delay.

From 2006 to 2012, he served as the headquarters secretary of the AIADMK. He was the minister for agriculture until November 2011 when a cabinet reshuffle by Jayalalithaa resulted in Sengottaiyan taking over the information technology portfolio. Later in 2012, he was removed from his ministerial berth, and party positions by Jayalalithaa.

After the death of Jayalalithaa on 5 December 2016, and following the appointment of Edappadi K. Palaniswami as the chief minister, Sengottaiyan was appointed as the minister for school education in February 2017. The appointment of Sengottaiyan was the only change made to the cabinet by Palaniswami at that time.

In September 2025, Sengottaiyan urged the party general secretary Palaniswami to take steps to reunite expelled and dissenting leaders to restore the party’s strength ahead of the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly election. On 6 September 2025, he was removed from his party posts by Palaniswami. He subsequently met union ministers Amit Shah and Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi on 10 September 2025, where he discussed unifying and strengthening the AIADMK. On 31 October 2025, he was expelled from the AIADMK under the allegation that he had accompanied expelled leaders O. Panneerselvam and T. T. V. Dhinakaran to Pasumpon for the Thevar Jayanthi ceremony.

TVK (2025–present)

After he was expelled from the AIADMK, he resigned as the member of the legislative assembly on 26 November 2025. He joined the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam in the presence of its leader Vijay and was appointed as the chief coordinator of the party's high-level administrative committee, and additionally as the organisation secretary for four western districts–Coimbatore, Erode, Tiruppur, and the Nilgiris on 27 November 2025.

Elections contested and results

Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections