constituency date children birth_place party office year birth_date spouse residence article_title name
tamil 1992 -rrb- chennai south -lrb- 1996 -- 2009 -rrb- sriperumbudur nadu -lrb- 2009 -- 2014 -rrb- -lrb- rajya sabha -rrb- -lrb- 1986 -- yes 1941 6 15 three sons thalikottai , tamil nadu dmk member of parliament 2006 15 june 1941 tmt.renuka devi baalu -lrb- 10 sep 1970 -rrb- chennai t. r. baalu
 t.raju baalu
t. r. baalu

thalikottai rajuthevar baalu or t.r. baalu -lrb- born 15 june 1941 in thalikottai , thiruvarur district in tamil nadu -rrb- is an indian tamil politician .
t.r. baalu did his bsc from new college in madras university and diploma in drafting engineering drawings from central polytechnic chennai .
he was a member of lok sabha of india and has been elected five times since 1996 .
he is an important leader of the dmk party and is known for political loyalty having been in the party since 1957 .
in his political career baalu went to jail over 20 times for participating in demonstrations and agitations for public cause .
he came to political limelight when he was jailed for one year under misa in 1976 for protesting against emergency clamped in the country .
baalu was first elected to parliament as a member of rajya sabha in 1986 .
he was elected to lok sabha in 1996 , 1998 and 2004 from chennai south constituency and from sriperumbudur constituency in 2009 .
he was minister of state in the ministry petroleum and natural gas , also held additional charge of the then ministry of non-conventional energy sources and cabinet minister of environment and forests from 1999 to december 2003 and as minister of shipping and road transport and highways from 2004 to 2009 .
t.r. baalu is the leader of dmk parliamentary party and is the only dmk member in the 30 member joint parliamentary committee that probes the 2g spectrum scam , where three members from dmk , namely a. raja , dayanidhi maran and kanimozhi are accused .
baalu is one of the prominent leaders to work towards the implementation of sethusamudram shipping canal project while he was the minister of shipping .
baalu was centre of a controversy involving illicit allocation of gas to his family owned king chemicals and king hi power in 2004 .
in 2010 , there were widespread protests by the local farmers against the baalu 's family owned industrial alcohol distillery in vadaseri , a village in thanjavur district against the establishment of it would reduce the ground water supply in the region .
internal rivalry in the dmk party emerged between baalu and s.s. palanimanickam , the mp from thanjavur constituency and the district secretary of the dmk in thanjavur , in 2012 , when baalu initiated a survery for railway lines in thanjavur district .
