Stalin to file nomination for elections to DMK chief on October 7

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin will file his nomination to contest elections to the post of DMK President on October 7. With no other nominations likely to be filed, Stalin will be elected unopposed as the president of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam for a second tenure at the party’s General Council meeting, scheduled to be held on October 9.

In a letter to party cadres, Stalin spoke about the democracy within the DMK and asked all his party people to take pride in the internal election process.

The chief minister also asked ministers, MPs, and MLAs to exercise caution while making comments on public issues. He also asked them to refer to his September 26 statement in which he launched a frontal attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party.

“We should be very careful in the way we speak and approach people. We should not give room for any mistake from our side,” Stalin told his cadres, amidst a string of controversies over statements by party MP A Raja and higher education minister K Ponmudy, who mocked the social welfare schemes.

Stalin was chosen as the DMK president on August 28, 2018, following the death of the incumbent and his father M Karunanidhi on August 7. The DMK, after Stalin took over as its president, registered successive electoral victories in 2019 and 2021 bringing the party back to power in Tamil Nadu after a decade.

Over the past few months, the party has conducted intra-party elections for various posts and the process is said to conclude by September end.

Like Stalin, Durai Murugan and T R Baalu are also likely to be elected unopposed as general secretary and treasurer of the party respectively on October 9 at the General Council meeting. The newly elected General Council members form the electoral college that elects the president, general secretary and the treasurer.

After the election, the elected president will nominate five deputy general secretaries, of which currently two are from Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes, two from the general pool—I Periyasamy, Anthiyur Selvaraj, K Ponmudy and A Raja—and a woman.

The names of Kanimozhi Karunanidhi and social welfare minister Geetha Jeevan are doing the rounds for the deputy general secretary woman quota after incumbent Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan resigned last month.