Former MLA of Singanallur Assembly Constituency K.C. Karunakaran passed away on Thursday. He was 74.
Mr. Karunakaran was the Coimbatore district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) from 1997 to 2001, and MLA from 2001 to 2006.
In the 2001 Assembly election, he defeated his nearest rival Pongalur Palaniswamy of the DMK. He had built a library, drinking water tank, and VAO office in several villages in his constituency using more than 70 % of MLA funds. He had joined the trade union movement as a worker of the Electricity Department. He was arrested and imprisoned for a month when he fought for the rights of workers of Kadambarai hydel electric project. He had walked with the protesters from Kadambarai to Coimbatore Collectorate.
Mr. Karunakaran had organised a major rally here after the bomb blasts in Coimbatore. He is survived by a son and a daughter.
