PH Pandian served as the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from 1985 to 1989. (Photo Credit: ANI)
New Delhi:
Former Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker and Senior AIADMK leader PH Pandian died at a private hospital on Saturday morning at a private hospital in Chennai after a prolonged illness.
Born in 1945, Pandian served as the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from 1985 to 1989. He was among two candidates who were elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislature from the Janaki Ramachandran Faction of AIADMK in the year 1989. He had won the Cheranmahadevi Assembly seat. Cheranmahadevi was an assembly constituency under the Tiruchendur Lok Sabha Constituency in Tamil Nadu. However, both ceased to exist after realignment in 2008.
In 1999, Pandian won the Tirunelveli Parliamentary constituency and went to the Lok Sabha. He was the organising secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) which was led by former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
Pandian had raised suspicions over Jayalalithaa's death, alleging there was a quarrel at her Poes Garden home during which she was "pushed down" and collapsed even as he stoutly opposed making her close aide VK Sasikala as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.
Paul Manoj Pandian, son of the AIADMK leader, was later elected as an MLA for AIADMK in 2001 from Cheranmahadevi, the same constituency represented by his father in 1989.
