[1][2] He is also the father of Thulsi Thivani Manogaran, Member of the Perak State Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Buntong and a co-founder of the Tamil Foundation of Malaysia.
[3] He contested the parliamentary seat of Cameron Highlands, Pahang in the 2013 general election, and was defeated by government minister G. Palanivel who was the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) President then.
[4] In the 2018 general election, he ran again for the Cameron Highlands seat but lost again in a five-corners contest this time to MIC Vice-President Sivarraajh Chandran by 597 votes majority.
[7] On 3 April 2010, Manogaran was arrested for holding demonstration with activists at Batu Caves to protest the usage of "Interlok" novel which contained derogatory words to Malaysian Indians community in the syllabus for the Malay Literature subject as compulsory reading for students in Form 5 (Secondary 5) in schools throughout Malaysia.
[8][9] On 9 January 2019 Manogaran as the PH candidate for the 2019 Cameron Highlands by-election had made insensitive remarks citing the perception that "Malays don't even buy kuih from Orang Asli vendors" analogy regarding BN fielding Orang Asli candidate causing him to apologise and express regrets for his action only a day later.