Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and ruling DMK
President M.K.Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin was on Wednesday
be sworn in as a Minister in State Cabinet.
At a brief function held at the Raj Bhavan, Governor R.N.Ravi
administered the oath of office and secrecy to 45-year-old
Udhayanidhi Stalin, who was elected from the Chepauk-
Thiruvallikeni Constituency in the city in his maiden entry into
the electoral politics.
Chief Minister, his Cabinet Colleagues and senior leaders of the
party were present at the swearing-in ceremony held at the
Durbar Hall in Raj Bhavan.
After being sworn in as a Minister and after exchanging pleasantries
with the Governor and the Chief Minister, Udhayanidhi was greeted
by senior Ministers.
Later, Udhayanidhi paid tributes at the memorial of his grandfather
and late Chief Minister and DMK Patriarch M.Karunanidhi and
at DMK Founder and Dravidian stalwart C.N.Annadurai on the
Marina beach front.
Later, he went to the State Secretariat and assumed charge as
the Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development and
Special Programme Implementation.
DMK sources said ascension of Udhayanidhi Stalin, who is also
the DMK Youth Wing Secretary, as the Minister that too in a short
span of 18 months after the DMK came to power was seen as an
apt reward for his hard work.
Senior DMK leader and Higher Education Minister K.Ponmudy
termed the induction of Udhayanidhi into the Cabinet as a belated
one and he should have been made a Minister 18 months back
considering his commendable job he did during the campaign
in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly
elections in which DMK rode back to power with a thumping
majority after a gap of ten years.
Though he had initially stayed away from active politics, he was
one of the DMK’s star campaigners in the 2019 and 2021 polls,
in which he successfully contested for the first time and got
elected to the State Assembly from a Constituency which had
earlier elected his grand father thrice.
After his campaign tour turned out to be a stupendous success,
with the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance sweeping the
2019 Lok Sabha polls winning 39 of the 40 seats in Tamil Nadu
and Puducherry, he was rewarded with the leadership of the
party’s youth wing.
His father had held this post for a long time from 1982 and 2017
before he became the Treasurer and the President of the DMK.
Udhayanidhi is also a prominent actor starting from his debut film
“Oru Kal Oru Kannadi”, a full fledged comedy film that turned out
to be a huge hit at the box office, following which he came a
prominent hero in the Tamil film industry and played the role of
protagonist in several films, which also turned out to be a big
success at the box office. He had also produced several films.
