Dayanidhi Murasoli Maran (born 5 December 1966) is an Indian politician and one of the prominent members of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party. He was elected thrice as a Member of Parliament to Lok Sabha from Chennai Central constituency during the 2004 general elections, 2009 general elections & 2019 general elections.

He is the son of former Union Minister Murasoli Maran and the grandnephew of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and former DMK president M. Karunanidhi. He is the younger brother of Indian billionaire Kalanithi Maran, the founder, chairman and of Sun Group. He is married to Priya, and has a daughter and a son.

Maran has wide exposure in the fields of media, television, cable technology, political economy and management and has been a delegate at many international seminars and conferences in various countries.

Dayanidhi is the second son of ex-minister Murasoli Maran, who had been the Commerce and Industrial minister. He is also the grandnephew of DMK president and ex-chief minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi. He is the younger brother of Kalanidhi Maran, the founder and managing director of Sun Network. He had his schooling with Don Bosco, Egmore,^[1][2] Chennai. He received initial education in Tamil Nadu and graduated in Economics from Loyola College^[3] in Chennai. He also attended the "Owner /President Management Programme" (OPM) from Harvard Business School (USA).^[4] The Owner/President Management Programme is meant for business owners/founders.^[5] Dayanidhi is married to Priya of "The Hindu" family. Priya is the daughter of Ramesh Rangarajan, Director Kasturi & Sons^[6] and the pair have a daughter and a son.

He contested from Central Chennai Constituency in Tamil Nadu as a DMK party candidate and been elected thrice during the 2004, 2009 & 2019 elections as member of parliament.

During the 2004 elections, his winning margin was over 134,000 votes and he received 62% of the total votes polled.^[4] He was appointed Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology on 26 May 2004. During his tenure as IT and Telecommunication Minister the call rates of mobiles and landlines were drastically reduced which in-turn influenced the growth of subscriptions.^[7] During the tenure, he was instrumental in garnering a large amount of Foreign Direct Investments into Communication and Information Technology Sector. Many multinational telecom companies including Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Flextronics and Dell set up units in the country. His ministry introduced "One Rupee One India" plan across the country, which enabled calls across the country at a rate of 1 ₹ per minute. His ministry set and achieved a target of 250 million connections in Dec 2007 to December 2010, against 75 million in May 2004.^[8][9][10]

During the 2009 elections he won by a margin of 33,454 votes and he received 46.82% of the total votes polled.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections, he once again contested from the Chennai Central Parliamentary Constituency, winning it for the 3rd time, polling a stunning 4,48,911 votes and defeated the other contestants with a record-breaking victory margin of 3,01,520 votes.^[11]