La Ganesan, a veteran organiser of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and one of the BJP’s longest-serving leaders in the state of Tamil Nadu, passed away on Friday at the age of 80. Ganesan served as the governor in three states and has currently the governor of Nagaland since February 2023.
After a brief illness, Ganesan was admitted to Apollo Hospital on August 8. But his condition began to worsen over the following weeks, ultimately leading to his death in Chennai.
Ganesan was born in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, on February 16, 1945, into a Brahmin family. He was drawn to the RSS as a boy, and soon became a full-time Pracharak. His early decades in the organisation did not give him much limelight, but everything changed in the early 1990s. When the RSS deputed him to the BJP as general secretary in charge of the party’s organisation in Tamil Nadu, he served in the same post until 2003, and his 10 years marked a period of turmoil and unlikely alliances for the BJP in the state.
Today, Ganesan is deemed the engineer of the BJP tie-up with the DMK in the late 1990s after the AIADMK led by J. Jayalalithaa pulled out of the NDA government.
Political Life
Ganesan’s political style involved the cultivation of cordial relationships across the political spectrum — that is, with the DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, Jayalalithaa, and even the communist leaders. He avoided stringent personal attacks and was never known to flaunt his caste identity. Instead, Ganesan built a reputation as a soft-spoken organiser and skilled orator who could address audiences in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and even Hindi. Other party colleagues called him a simple man who would often travel with only a small bag.
Without doubt, Ganesan worked tirelessly and consistently to connect with the Tamil diaspora in Sri Lanka, Europe and across Asia.
Beyond politics, Ganesan was highly interested in literature and music. He wrote columns for mainstream publications, edited Ore Naadu (One Nation, which is the Tamil Nadu mouthpiece for the BJP) and founded Pottramarai (Golden Lotus, which is a collective of Tamil scholars from across the world). He was also known as a singer and composer among his colleagues, as he wrote several songs on patriotism and national integrity.
Because of his consistent hard work, Ganesan rose through the BJP’s ranks to become state president of the Tamil Nadu unit, national secretary and vice president. He represented Madhya Pradesh in the Rajya Sabha in August 2021. Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed him as the governor of Manipur. He later held additional charges as governor of West Bengal before finally moving to Nagaland in 2023.