nDemand from some of the powerful party cadre to field Udhayanidhi Stalin, the film actor-turned-politician son of MK Stalin, the party president, as the candidate for the post of Chennai Mayor in the upcoming local body polls has put the DMK leadership in a dilemma.
Mayors of municipal corporations in Tamil Nadu are elected directly by the voters. The post of Chennai Mayor commands respect and is rated as a powerful post. Stalin himself was the Mayor of Chennai from 1996 to 2001.
If Udhayanidhi is nominated by the party as its mayoral candidate, it would be his first electoral battle and graduation into big-time politics. Stalin has charted out the political road map of his son with the assistance of M Subramaniam, a confidante and former mayor of Chennai. It is Subramaniam who has been entrusted with the task of promoting Udhayanidhi among party cadre in a big way.
The grooming of Udhayanidhi is being seen as an attempt by Stalin to bring the party apparatus under the control of his family which includes wife Durga, daughter Senthamarai and son-in-law Sabareesan. The last named is a businessman and wields big power in the DMK. It was Sabareesan who masterminded Stalin’s 2016 Assembly election campaign and 2019 Lok Sabha election campaign which yielded impressive results.
Since the DMK and its allies swept the Lok Sabha election of April 2019 by winning all the seats from the Chennai metropolis, Stalin is confident that he could make Udhaynidhi win in the mayoral election. Once Udhayanidhi crosses the hurdle of the mayoral election, it goes without asking that he alone would be the contender for the Chief Minister’s post after Stalin leaves the scene.
But if rumors are to be believed, discontentment is brewing up in the DMK. Senior leader Dorai Murugan, the Vellore strongman is already upset over the delay in elevating him as the party general secretary in place of K Anbazhagan, the 97-year-old veteran who is in a state of comatose for the last one year.
All hoardings installed in the State by the DMK leadership feature only the larger-than-life size pictures of Stalin and Udhayanidhi while those of Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi’s daughter by his third wife Rajathi Ammal and grand nephew Dayanidhi Maran are absent.
A party insider on condition of anonymity told The Pioneer that order has been issued by the party leadership not to include anybody other than Stalin and Udhayanidhi in the posters. It is son-rise time in the DMK.
