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Kanimozhi elevated as DMK’s deputy general secy
In her acceptance speech, Kanimozhi said she saw her father and former chief minister late M Karunanidhi in Stalin.
Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, the Thoothukudi MP and MK Stalin’s half-sister, who already leads the DMK’s women’s wing, was elevated as one of the party’s deputy general secretaries at the party general council meeting in Chennai on Sunday.
Stalin introduced her as the “roaring language in Delhi”. For several years now, Kanimozhi has been the party’s face in Delhi, in Parliament and a main draw for women back home where women outnumber male voters and have traditionally supported the late J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK.
With her elevation, Kanimozhi has cemented her place in the DMK as first among equals, briefly wading a through a power struggle with Stalin’s son and MLA Udhaynidhi Stalin, who on Sunday was one of the firsts to congratulate her. Ministers I Periyasamy, K Ponmudy and MPs A Raja and Andhiyur Selvaraj are the other four deputy deneral secretaries of the DMK.
Previously, women leaders Sarguna Pandian and Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan held the position of deputy general secretary— one of the four which is reserved for a woman. Jagadeesan announced her retirement from active politics and resigned from the post last month. It remains to be seen if she will be allowed to continue her post as the chief for the DMK’s women’s wing.
In her acceptance speech, Kanimozhi said she saw her father and former chief minister late M Karunanidhi in Stalin. “I will march along with you in all your struggles,” Kanimozhi said addressing Stalin as her brother multiple times.
Stalin has evidently been giving her more prominence to play a role in the party’s affairs. Besides Kanimozhi, Stalin’s son and MLA Udhaynidhi is the only family member who occupied a position in the party as DMK’s youth wing secretary.
“She has developed a distinct identity in Tamil Nadu politics,” said a senior DMK leader not wishing to be identified. “She is very strong on the Dravidian ideology. Her activities as a member of Parliament, her advocacy for state autonomy, voicing against Hindi imposition and for women’s rights in Delhi have influenced national politics numerous times. Being chosen for an important party position is a significant political move.”
Kanimozhi, also a poet, the only child of Karunandhi to retain his artistic streak entered politics in 2007 by entering the Rajya Sabha. Soon she was made the secretary of the DMK’s women’s wing and re-elected to Rajya Sabha in 2013.
In 2019, facing an election for the first time, she won a Lok Sabha seat from Thoothukudi. Before the 2021 elections, in an interview to HT, Kanizmohi had said it was her father who convinced her to enter politics and she hoped to play a larger role in the party as well as in the parliament after the DMK came to power last year after a decade. She was the tallest woman leader on the campaign trail.
