Sixty-six-year-old MK Stalin has become the undisputed and unquestionable leader of the DMK,

Tamil Nadu’s principal Opposition party. This has been made possible by amending the bylaws dealing with the powers vested on the party president in the general council meeting of the party held earlier this week at Chennai.

With the new amendments enacted by the general council, Stalin need not consult the general secretary of the party to take any decision or break any logjams.

According to a member of the general council, the new rule has empowered the president to take decisions ranging from the district unit to the party head quarters. The amendments were drafted by Stalin’s close confidante P Wilson, the newly elected Rajya Sabha member of the party who is also a legal luminary.

The amendment has

literally sidelined Kalyanasundaram Anbazhagan, the general secretary of the party, who is bed ridden for quite some time now. Prior to the amendment, Stalin had to consult the general secretary for each and every decision he had to take. Anbazhagan, 97, has been the general secretary of the party since 1977 and is credited with the record for being the longest serving and oldest second-in-command of a political party in the country.

Anbazhagn, the last surviving founder-member of the party, is in a state of comatose, according to party insiders. “He has become senile and  rest of the party leaders are shocked why he is not being replaced,” said Govindarajan Satyamurthy, columnist who has been a keen observer of the DMK for the last four decades. Though  the general secretary is a powerful position in the party, former president late M Karunanidhi saw to it that Anbazhagan, a trusted family loyalist was appointed to the post and ensured his continuation despite indifferent health.

But a section of leadership in the DMK is feeling that the latest move by Stalin to usurp the powers of the general secretary is an attempt to being the entire party structure under his family. “Durai Murugan, the party treasurer, has been eyeing the post of the general secretary for sometime and it is said that he is thoroughly disappointed with Stalin for ignoring him. It seems Stalin is keeping the post of general secretary hot for his son Udhayanidhi Stalin, the chief of the DMK youth wing,” said Satyamurthy. But Murugan, 81, is also not in the best of health though he moves around the State without any physical support.

A party insider confided to The Pioneer that all was not well within the DMK. “Since the day Karunanidhi took over the reigns of the party following the death of C N Annadurai in 1969, he has gradually and systematically made it into a family enterprises,” said the leader on condition of anonymity. The recent setback suffered by the DMK in the assembly by-election could be a fall out of this discontentment, say many political commentators.