Gopi Shankar Madurai is an Indian equal rights and Indigenous rights activist. Shankar was one of the youngest, and the first openly intersex and genderqueer statutory authority and one of the candidates to contest in 2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election. Shankar is also the founder of Srishti Madurai Student Volunteer Collective. Shankar's work inspired the Madras High Court to direct the Government of Tamil Nadu to order a ban on forced sex-selective surgeries on intersex infants. In December 2017, Shankar was elected to the executive board of ILGA Asia. In August 2020, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment appointed Shankar as the South Regional representative in the National Council for Transgender Persons.

The Fifteenth Legislative Assembly Election was held on 16 May 2016 for the 232 seats of the Legislative Assembly in the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The AIADMK under J. Jayalalithaa won the elections and became the first ruling party to be re-elected in Tamil Nadu since 1984, though with a simple majority. The DMK won half of the seats it contested but its allies performed poorly; notably, the Indian National Congress won 16% of the seats they contested, and the alliance lost due to its poor performance. The votes were counted on 19 May 2016. In the previous election in 2011, AIADMK, under the leadership of Jayalalithaa, won a thumping majority and formed the government, while DMDK chief Vijayakanth served as the Leader of Opposition until January 2016. This was the last election that J. Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi contested, as they both died later that year and 2018 respectively.