Manoharan is a member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP). In the
1999 general elections, Manoharan was the DAP candidate for the
Segambut parliamentary constituency. Manoharan lost to the
Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate
Tan Kee Kwong with 16,340 votes opposed to Tan's 24,926 votes. In the
2008 general elections, Manoharan, represented the DAP and won the
Selangor State Legislative Assembly seat for
Kota Alam Shah getting twice as many votes as the ethnic
Chinese candidate, in a seat dominated by ethnic Chinese voters. M Manoharan obtained 12,699 votes to win with a 7,184-vote majority the Kota Alam Shah state seat. The news of his victory was one of the surprising ones in the 2008 elections as he is being detained under the
Internal Security Act without trial after organising anti-discrimination protests. Manoharan is only the third person to have won an election while under ISA detention. On 9 May 2009, Manoharan, along with P. Uthayakumar and K. Vasantha Kumar were released from ISA detention at about 2.30. ==HINDRAF==