When trade union leaders were elected to Parliament

Coimbatore, known for textile and engineering industries, is home to lakhs of workers. It had elected two Members of Parliament who were active in the trade unions.

S. Duraisamy, who is the general secretary of the Coimbatore Periyar Mavatta Dravida Panchalai Thozilalar Sangham since 1960 and a trade union leader for more than 60 years now, says just Singanallur had about one lakh textile mill workers. Each textile mill in Coimbatore had 1,500 to 2,000 workers and they were associated with one trade union or the other. The labour strength was high in Coimbatore in the 1950s and 1960s. The union leaders used to go campaigning for the candidates during elections as the unions were mostly affiliated to a political party, he said.

Former Valparai MLA and AITUC leader M. Arumugam, said K. Ramani was a textile mill worker who had studied only upto Class VI. However, he went on to become the Tamil Nadu State president and All India vice president of the CITU. He contested and won against industrialist R. Mahalingam in 1969.

Mr. Arumugam said another union leader who was elected to the Parliament from Coimbatore was Parvathi Krishnan. She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1953 and was elected Coimbatore MP in 1957, 1974, and 1977. She was the AITUC’s All India secretary and later its vice president too.

She contributed for the growth of Coimbatore’s industries. As an MP she ensured availability of coke and pig iron in Coimbatore that led to the development of the engineering sector here. In 1962, 15 textile mills were closed in Coimbatore. In 1967, when the DMK government was formed, she gathered nearly 5,000 workers and demanded the government to take over the mills.