M. K. Stalin | |||||||||||||||
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Stalin in 2022 | |||||||||||||||
| 8th Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu | |||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 7 May 2021 | |||||||||||||||
| Governor | Banwarilal Purohit (2021) R. N. Ravi (2021–present) | ||||||||||||||
| Deputy Chief Minister | Udhayanidhi Stalin (2024–present) | ||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Edappadi K. Palaniswami | ||||||||||||||
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| 2ndPresident ofDravida Munnetra Kazhagam | |||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 28 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | M. Karunanidhi | ||||||||||||||
| Working President of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | |||||||||||||||
| In office 4 January 2017 – 28 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||
| President | M. Karunanidhi | ||||||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Position abolished | ||||||||||||||
| 17thLeader of the Opposition ofTamil Nadu Legislative Assembly | |||||||||||||||
| In office 24 May 2016 – 6 May 2021 | |||||||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||||||
| Chief Minister | Jayalalitha O. Panneerselvam Edappadi K Palaniswami | ||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Vijayakanth | ||||||||||||||
| 1stDeputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu | |||||||||||||||
| In office 29 May 2009 – 15 May 2011 | |||||||||||||||
| Governor | Surjit Singh Barnala | ||||||||||||||
| Chief Minister | M. Karunanidhi | ||||||||||||||
| Portfolios |
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| Preceded by | Position established | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | O. Panneerselvam (in2017) | ||||||||||||||
| Treasurer of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | |||||||||||||||
| In office 27 December 2008 – 27 August 2018 | |||||||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Arcot N. Veeraswami | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Durai Murugan | ||||||||||||||
| Cabinet Minister Government of Tamil Nadu | |||||||||||||||
| In office 13 May 2006 – 15 May 2011 | |||||||||||||||
| Minister |
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| Chief Minister | M. Karunanidhi | ||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | K. P. Anbalagan | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | P. Mohan | ||||||||||||||
| Deputy Gen.Secretary of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | |||||||||||||||
| In office 2 June 2003 – 26 December 2008 | |||||||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | position established | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | position abolished | ||||||||||||||
| 45thMayor of Chennai | |||||||||||||||
| In office 25 October 1996 – 6 September 2002 | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | R. Arumugam (in 1973) | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Karate R. Thiagarajan | ||||||||||||||
| Member ofTamil Nadu Legislative Assembly | |||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 23 May 2011 | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | constituency established | ||||||||||||||
| Constituency | Kolathur | ||||||||||||||
| In office 13 May 1996 – 15 May 2011 | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | K. A. Krishnaswamy | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | B. Valarmathi | ||||||||||||||
| Constituency | Thousand Lights | ||||||||||||||
| In office 27 January 1989 – 30 January 1991 | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | K. A. Krishnaswamy | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | K. A. Krishnaswamy | ||||||||||||||
| Constituency | Thousand Lights | ||||||||||||||
| Youth wing Secretary ofDravida Munnetra Kazhagam | |||||||||||||||
| In office 20 July 1982 – 6 July 2017 | |||||||||||||||
| General Secretary | |||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Position Established | ||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | M. P. Saminathan | ||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||
| Born | Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin (1953-03-01)1 March 1953 (age 72) | ||||||||||||||
| Political party | Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam | ||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||
| Children | 2, includingUdhayanidhi | ||||||||||||||
| Parent |
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| Relatives | Karunanidhi family | ||||||||||||||
| Residence(s) | 25/9, Chittaranjan Road,Alwarpet, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India | ||||||||||||||
| Education | Bachelor of Arts | ||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Presidency College, Chennai | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Politician | ||||||||||||||
| Signature | |||||||||||||||
| Website | mkstalin | ||||||||||||||
| Nickname | MKS | ||||||||||||||
Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin[a] (born 1 March 1953) is an Indian politician serving as the eighth and currentchief minister of Tamil Nadu since 2021. He is the president of theDravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party since 28 August 2018, and served as the working president of party from January 2017 to August 2018.
Born in 1953, Stalin is the third son of former Tamil Nadu chief ministerM. Karunanidhi. He completed his education atPresidency College inChennai in 1973. He is married to Durga, and their sonUdhayanidhi is the currentdeputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
Stalin began his political career in the late 1960s, and was elected to the general committee of the DMK in 1973. He was jailed duringthe emergency in 1976. He became the secretary of the youth wing of the DMK in 1982, a post which he held for more than four decades. He served as the 45thmayor of Chennai from 1996 to 2002. He has been elected to theTamil Nadu Legislative Assembly eight times. He served as the first deputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 2009 to 2011.
In 2009, Stalin was conferred an honorary doctorate byAnna University. In 2022, Stalin was ranked 24th on the list of India's most powerful personalities byThe Indian Express.
Stalin was born inChennai on 1 March 1953 as the third son ofM. Karunanidhi, the formerTamil Nadu chief minister, and Dayalu Ammal. He was named afterSoviet leaderJoseph Stalin, who died four days after he was born.[1][2] Stalin did his schooling at theMadras Christian College Higher Secondary School, Chennai.[3] He completed a pre-university course atVivekananda College and obtained a degree in history fromPresidency College, in 1973.[4]
Stalin married Durga (alias Shantha) on 20 August 1975. They have two children.[4] Their son,Udhayanidhi Stalin, is an actor and politician who has beendeputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu since 2024.[5] Their daughter Senthamarai is an entrepreneur and education professional.[6][7] He is a proclaimedatheist.[8][9][10]
Stalin began his political career in his early teens when he started the youth wing of theDravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Gopalapuram with his friends.[11] As a 14 year old, he campaigned for his uncle,Murasoli Maran, in the1967 Madras State Legislative Assembly election.[12][13] In 1973, he was elected to the general committee of the DMK.[14]
Stalin was jailed inMadras Central Prison under theMaintenance of Internal Security Act for protesting against thethe emergency in 1976.[15][16][17] He endured police torture in custody, which resulted in the death of his fellow prisonerC. Chittibabu.[18][19][20] He wrote his final year college exams while in prison.[2]
Stalin established the youth wing of the DMK in 1982 and became its secretary, a post he held for more than four decades.[2] During the 1980s, he travelled across Tamil Nadu to encourage and mentor youth to join active politics.[21] In 1989, he was elected to theTamil Nadu Legislative Assembly fromThousand Lights, and represented the constituency five times.[2] In 2003, he became Deputy General Secretary of the DMK.[11]
Stalin became themayor of Chennai in 1996.[22] As the mayor, he initiated theSingara Chennai (Beautiful Chennai) project to improve the infrastructure of the city.[2] He modernised the garbage disposal system by giving priority to cleaning works, and implemented integrated development projects such as health, public construction and schools. He addressed the traffic congestion issues by building multiple flyovers.[23] During his first tenure, nine major flyovers and 49 bridges were constructed at the cost of₹0.95 billion (US$11 million).[24] He also worked on improving the standard of corporation run schools to be on par with private schools.[25][26] Parks and fountains were set up at 18 major junctions, 81 parks were renovated, and saplings were planted at theMarina beach.[27] His efforts in improving city infrastructure earned him the title ofManagara Thanthai (father of the city).[28]
Stalin was re-elected Mayor for the second time in 2001.[29] However, the then chief ministerJ. Jayalalithaa enacted the Tamil Nadu Municipal Laws (Amendment) Act, in 2002, which prevented a person from holding two elected posts in the government.[26] As Stalin was an elected member of the legislative assembly, this law was widely seen as aimed at removing him as Chennai's mayor.[30] While theMadras High Court later struck down the law, it held that as per the City Municipal Corporation Act, 1919, a person cannot be mayor for two consecutive terms, though unlike Stalin, earlier mayors were not directly elected.[28] As a result, Stalin resigned from the post.[31]
In the2006 assembly elections, the DMK regained control of the state assembly. Stalin became the minister for rural development and local administration in theGovernment of Tamil Nadu and retained this office throughout his term. During his tenure, he expanded the women self-help groups across the state by establishing 1,75,493 newer ones. He also established various comprehensive drinking water projects such as Hogenakkal and Ramanathapuram water schemes.[13][26] In 2008, he became treasurer of DMK.[11]
On 29 May 2009, Stalin was appointed as the deputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu bygovernorSurjit Singh Barnala.[32] He was first Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.[33][34] During his tenure, the government of Tamil Nadu on 23 February 2011 received the special award for the best state among the largest states in India and the diamond state award for best state in three categories of civil safety, drinking sater and Sanitation and women's development.[35] The state also won the most number of Nirmal Gram Awards for its exceptional role in maintaining sanitation in the villages in the state during his tenure as the minister of rural development.[36]
In 2013, Karunanidhi announced Stalin as his successor to head the DMK, and confirmed it later in 2016.[37][38] Ahead of the2016 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly election, Stalin went on a statewide tour titledNamakku Naame. He won from theKolathur constituency and was appointed as the opposition leader in the state legislative assembly.[39] In 2017, Stalin went on anotherNamakku Naame tour.[40] He was appointed as the working president in January 2017 when his father's health started declining. In 2018, his father Karunanidhi died, and Stalin became the president of the DMK.[13]
Stalin formed theSecular Progressive Alliance in Tamil Nadu and led the alliance in2019 general election in the state.[41][42] The Secular Progressive Alliance won 39 out of 40 Parliament seats, and 12 out of 21 in the assembly by-elections in the first victory for the party since taking charge as DMK President.[43][44]
In the2021 Assembly elections, Stalin led the campaign for the Secular Progressive Alliance. It won 159 seats out of the 234, with the DMK itself winning an absolute majority with 133 seats.[45] He took oath as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu on 7 May 2021 along with the rest of hiscabinet.[46][47]
Stalin assumed office during the second wave of theCOVID-19 pandemic, and established a war room to monitor the status of beds, ambulances, and oxygen supply to address the situation.[48] He visited the COVID-19 patients in the Government ESI Medical College Hospital against expert advice.[49] Tamil Nadu had the highest coronavirus vaccine wastage under the previous government, but the state made it to the top in the list of states with lowest COVID-19 vaccine wastage during Stalin's tenure.[50] On 2 September 2021, actor and politicianChiranjeevi met with Stalin to commend him on governance efficacy and said he proved his mettle in handling the grave situation ofCOVID-19 pandemic. Media houses in Kerala lauded Stalin on his policies and efforts in controlling the spread ofCOVID-19 during the second wave, provision of free bus pass for women and ₹4,000 as a pandemic relief for ration card holders.[51]
Stalin established a new economic advisory council which included economistsEsther Duflo,Raghuram Rajan,Jean Drèze,Arvind Subramanian, and former Finance Secretary S Narayan.[52] He handed over appointment orders of theHindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to trained aspirants of all castes as temple priests in August 2021.[53] He quoted the reformist leaderPeriyar in an official release which said Periyar fought for equal rights in worship for all those who believe in God.[54] In September 2021, he changed the name of refugee camps ofSri Lankan Tamils to rehabilitation camps and said "They are not orphans, we are there for them".[55] In September 2021, he announced that Periyar's birth anniversary will be celebrated as social justice day annually.[56]
In June 2021, Stalin announced that the state law ministry will review the legal cases filed by the previous government. In September 2021, his government withdrew over 5570 legal cases filed by the previous government from the past ten years against journalists and protesters against thethe three farm laws promulgated by the union government in 2020,Citizenship Amendment Act, methane extraction, neutrino project,Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant and the Chennai-Salem expressway project.[57][58] In May 2022, he welcomed the release ofA. G. Perarivalan, convicted in theassassination of formerprime ministerRajiv Gandhi.[59][60][61][62][63] He served as a member of thebusiness advisory committee andcommittee on rules in the16th Tamil Nadu assembly[64]
Stalin contested the1984 assembly polls unsuccessfully fromThousand Lights constituency in Chennai.[4] He was elected to the Tamil Nadu assembly for the first time from the same constituency in1989.[65] In1991, he contested for the third time from the same Assembly constituency, and lost. He had been elected to the assembly consecutively for six times since1996.[4]
| Year | Constituency | Party | Votes | % | Opponent | Party | Opponent Votes | % | Result | Margin | % | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Kolathur | DMK | 1,05,522 | 60.86 | Aadi Rajaram | AIADMK | 35,138 | 20.27 | Won | 70,384 | 40.59 | ||
| 2016 | 91,303 | 54.25 | J. C. D. Prabhakar | 53,573 | 31.83 | Won | 37,730 | 22.42 | |||||
| 2011 | 68,677 | 48.35 | Saidai Duraisamy | 65,943 | 46.43 | Won | 2,734 | 1.92 | |||||
| 2006 | Thousand Lights | 49,817 | 46.00 | Aadi Rajaram | 47,349 | 43.72 | Won | 2,468 | 2.28 | ||||
| 2001 | 49,056 | 51.41 | S. Sekar | TMC(M) | 41,782 | 43.78 | Won | 7,274 | 7.63 | ||||
| 1996 | 66,905 | 69.72 | Zeenath Sheriffdeen | AIADMK | 22,028 | 22.05 | Won | 44,877 | 47.67 | ||||
| 1991 | 38,445 | 39.19 | K. A. Krishnaswamy | 55,426 | 56.50 | Lost | -16,981 | -17.31 | |||||
| 1989 | 50,818 | 50.59 | Thambidurai | 30,184 | 30.05 | Won | 20,634 | 20.54 | |||||
| 1984 | 43,954 | 47.86 | K. A. Krishnaswamy | 46,246 | 50.36 | Lost | -2,292 | -2.50 | |||||
Stalin has been described as evolving from party functionary to pragmatic leader, with political observers noting public recognition of his administrative skills and his stands against sycophancy.[citation needed] In August 2021, he was ranked first among all chief ministers of India in the "Mood of the Nation" survey done byIndia Today.[66] In 2022, Stalin was ranked 24th on the list of India's most powerful personalities byThe Indian Express.[67] He was commended by domain experts[who?] and other ministers across the country for not using public money to enhance his popularity among the masses.[68][better source needed]
Anna University conferred an honorary doctorate for his contributions to governance and community development on 1 August 2009.[69][70][71][72] The Kentucky Colonel Award, the highest award given by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in the United States, was given to Stalin for his public service.[73] He was also honoured as Kentucky's goodwill ambassador.[74]
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Actor
Producer
| Party political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Leader ofDravida Munnetra Kazhagam 28 August 2018 – Present | Incumbent |