L Murugan Quits Union Council of Ministers and Rajya Sabha to Rebuild BJP in Tamil Nadu

L Murugan, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and for Parliamentary Affairs, resigned on Tuesday from the Union Council of Ministers and gave up his Rajya Sabha membership, saying he wants to devote himself full-time to building the Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu.

Murugan announced the decision in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking to be relieved of both roles so he could return to organisational work in his home state ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.

What Murugan said

In the letter, Murugan described his journey from a family of daily-wage labourers to the Union government as the greatest privilege of his life, and said he now wanted to go back to the grassroots and stand alongside party workers. He signed off with the line Nation First, Party Next, Self Last.

Speaking to reporters in Delhi afterwards, he said he had asked the prime minister to send him to Tamil Nadu so that he could strengthen the party by travelling to villages and towns across the state and preparing the ground for the next general election. He also referred to Modi's visit to Tamil Nadu two days earlier, saying the public response he witnessed had motivated him.

Who is L Murugan

Murugan is one of the BJP's most prominent Dalit faces from the south. He led the party's Tamil Nadu unit from 2020 before being inducted into the Union Cabinet in the July 2021 reshuffle, when K Annamalai succeeded him as state chief. Because he was not a member of either House at the time, he entered Parliament through a Rajya Sabha bypoll from Madhya Pradesh later that year. He has also served as vice-chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and began his political career in the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.

His resignation creates a vacancy in the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh, which will be filled through a bypoll.

A day of reshuffle signals

The timing is notable. Murugan's announcement came on the same day the BJP released its list of eight candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh, which left out Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Minister of State BL Verma. Together, the two developments have fuelled talk of changes to the Union Council of Ministers, although the government has made no official announcement about a reshuffle.

Why Tamil Nadu matters to the BJP

Tamil Nadu remains one of the hardest states for the BJP to crack. The party has historically won few seats there on its own and has depended on alliances with Dravidian parties to gain a foothold. Sending a sitting minister back to the state for full-time organisational work signals that the leadership sees a long, ground-level effort as necessary if the party is to expand its footprint before 2029.

For Murugan, the move trades a ministerial office in Delhi for a political role whose results will be measured at the ballot box. How the party formally assigns him in the state, and who takes over his portfolios in the ministry, are the next details to watch.

This is an original summary based on public reporting. See our editorial policy for how we source, write, and correct our stories.