Time yet to come to make Udhayanidhi Deputy Chief Minster, hints M K Stalin

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Monday acknowledged that the chorus to elevate Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin as his deputy in the government has grown “louder” but said he is yet to take a call on the demand.

“The demand has grown stronger, but it is yet to ripe,” Stalin said in his father late M Karunanidhi’s trademark style when asked by reporters whether he would consider demands with the party to anoint his son as the deputy chief minister.

This is the first time that Stalin has publicly responded to the reported move to appoint Udhayanidhi, who holds Sports Development and Youth Welfare, and Special Programme Implementation portfolios, as the deputy chief minister.

Stalin’s comments come amid reports that his son will get a promotion in the government very soon. Sources say Udhayanidhi Stalin is likely to retain Sports and SPI portfolios as they allow him to travel across the state to meet youth and monitor flagship schemes of the DMK government.

The elevation is likely to be part of a minor reshuffle in the portfolios and induction of at least one new minister to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of V Senthil Balaji, who has been in jail since June 2023 in a cash-for-job scam during his tenure as Transport Minister between 2011-2015 in the AIADMK government.

Notwithstanding the impending promotion, Udhayanidhi Stalin is virtually the no. 2 in the DMK government as he steps in to inaugurate programs and launch schemes of various departments whenever his father is not able to do so due to his health. He is also the most sought among ministers to inaugurate schemes in their departments.

Udhayanidhi’s rise in the DMK has been meteoric even for a member of the first family and is in complete contrast with his father Stalin, who climbed the party ladder gradually over the decades. His first political outing was in 2018, a year after his grandfather M Karunanidhi was confined to his home, and the next year he was appointed as secretary of the youth wing.

In 2021, he contested the assembly elections from Chepauk-Tiruvallikeni, a constituency in Chennai represented by his grandfather, and won by a massive margin. And in 2022, he was a minister in his father’s 1.5-year-old government.

In contrast, Stalin, who was groomed by Karunanidhi to succeed him, had to wait for at least 15 years to join his father’s cabinet. Stalin was inducted as a minister only in 2006, in his fourth term as a legislator and patiently waited for Karunanidhi to hand over the reins to him.