DMK all set to name MK Stalin as party chief on August 28

Chennai: DMK is all set to elect its working M K Stalin as the party chief at its general council meet on August 28 here. The agenda for the meeting to be held at party headquarters 'Anna Arivalayam,' will be the election of party president and treasurer, a DMK release said. 

Days after Stalin's estranged brother Alagiri openly challenged his leadership and claimed that all the "true loyalists" of his father were on his side, DMK has now announced its general council meet for formalising Stalin's defacto control of the party over the last couple of years since his father and DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi took ill. He passed away at the hospital on May 7.

Alagiri's revolt in unlikely to create any problems since Stalin has taken firm grip on all the district units of the party, including those in the south that had been once the domain of the hostile elder brother. DMK district units like Cuddalore-West have already adopted resolutions unanimously proposing Stalin's elevation and at the recent meeting of the party executive at the Anna Arivalayam to condole Karunanidhi's death, senior leader and DMK's principal secretary Durai Murugan addressed Stalin as 'future president'.

Stalin, 65, has recently written in his column in DMK organ, Murasoli, that his father had personally trained and guided him, bestowing responsibilities befitting his toil for the party. Starting his political innings as a school student when barely 14, when he campaigned for the DMK in the 1967 Assembly election, Stalin was incarcerated under the MISA in 1976 during the Emergency. He had held various posts, including the youth wing secretary and treasurer. 

Elected as MLA for the first time in 1989 from Thousand Lights constituency-from where he was re-elected thrice-Stalin became the Municipal Administration Minister under his father and went on to become his Deputy CM in 2009.