E-Paper
Stalin to be elected DMK prez unopposed for second consecutive time
Tamil Nadu chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin will be elected unopposed to the party’s top post for a second consecutive tenure as he is the only candidate to have filed the nomination on Friday
Tamil Nadu chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) president MK Stalin will be elected unopposed to the party’s top post for a second consecutive tenure as he is the only candidate to have filed the nomination on Friday.
The DMK general council meeting on October 9 will announce Stalin’s election.
Similarly, senior leaders Durai Murugan and TR Baalu will be elected unopposed as general secretary and treasurer of the DMK as no one else has filed nominations. They currently occupy posts as minister for water resources and parliamentary leader, respectively.
They submitted their nomination papers to party organising secretary RS Bharathi at the party headquarters in Chennai. These three occupy the top three positions in the DMK’s party structure.
Stalin visited the memorials of DMK founder and former chief ministers CN Annadurai and M Karunanidhi. When he filed his nomination papers, his family members – his son, DMK youth wing secretary and MLA Udhayandhi Stalin, his half-sister, women’s wing chief and MP Kanimozhi were present.
Stalin was chosen as the DMK’s president on August 28, 2018 following the death of his father and incumbent Karunanidhi on August 7. Since then, the DMK has had successive electoral victories in 2019 parliamentary elections and 2021 assembly elections which brought the party back to power in Tamil Nadu after a decade and the local body elections last year and this year.
The DMK has been conducting intra-party elections for various posts and the process concluded at the end of September. After the DMK’s mouthpiece Murasoli published the list of the new elected functionaries party units, a section of DMK cadre expressed disappointment.
Stalin responded that there were forces against the organisational polls. The newly-elected members of the general council will form the electoral college that elects the president, general secretary and the treasurer.
Following this procedure, the elected party president will nominate five deputy general secretaries. The five are represented in the following composition – two from the SC/ST community, two from the general, and one woman.
The current deputy general secretaries are I Periyasamy, Anthiyur Selvaraj, K Ponmudy and A Raja. After incumbent Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan resigned from the post and politics last month, the names of Kanimozhi and social welfare minister Geetha Jeevan are doing the rounds for the deputy general secretary reserved for women.
The ruling party’s general council meeting on October 9 has been shifted from the party headquarters ‘Anna Arivalayam’ to Saint George Wings Convention Centre due to space constraints.
