New Delhi: M.K. Stalin was today elected president of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) unopposed. He has already been managing the party for over a year after his father and former party president M. Karunanidhi was taken seriously ill.
Karunanidhi was the party’s chief for 49 years.
According to NDTV, black-and-red party flags and music marked celebrations at the DMK headquarters in Chennai today for the first time since Karunanidhi’s death on August 7.
Meanwhile, Stalin’s elder brother M.K. Azhagiri warned the party on Monday that if he was not taken back party, the DMK would have to face “consequences”. Azhagiri was expelled from the party by Karunanidhi in 2014. “Kalaignar is not there now. The party has to be saved and protected,” Azhagiri has now said.
The DMK, however, has brushed aside Azhagiri’s claims and rallied behind Stalin, Hindustan Times reported.
Stalin was groomed by his father to take over the party. As Kavitha Muralidharan wrote in The Wire,
In his passing away, Karunanidhi might leave crores of his cadres in distress, yet unlike his bête noir J. Jayalalithaa, he would not leave his party directionless. Unlike Jayalalithaa, who never named an heir for the party, Karunanidhi had announced that his son M.K. Stalin would step into his shoes.
With over 40 years of experience in public life, Stalin had earlier proved his mettle as Chennai’s elected mayor in 1996. In 2009, Karunanidhi made him the deputy chief minister. Significantly, the same year Stalin was also made party treasurer – a post held by Karunanidhi himself before he became the party’s first president. Karunanidhi had repeatedly made it clear that Stalin will be his heir but not until ‘he is around.’