Stalin Makes Father And DMK Patriarch Karunanidhi's Dream Come True

DMK chief MK Stalin was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on Friday

"Stalin is the future of the party," said late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi about six years ago at a party meet when his son was the treasurer. It has come true on Friday with MK Stalin being sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Though the DMK could not capture power in 2016 despite a no holds barred contest, Stalin continued to relentlessly take the fight against the AIADMK ahead both in the State Assembly and outside of it, which helped him realise the dream of storming back to the seat of power, Fort St George after a decade. While he targeted the AIADMK and BJP governments at the State and Centre holding a slew of protests over the years on several issues, his position in the party was strengthened further when he became the working president in early 2017 and the next year its president following the death of Karunanidhi. Stalin who began his political career as a teenager grew steadily in the party and he was given more responsibilities in the government in a step-by-step fashion when Karunanidhi was the Chief Minister during 2006-11. Having successfully warded off the challenge from his Madurai-based brother MK Alagiri, he grew stronger and the entire party organisation from top-down rallied behind him. Also, he picked the directly ''writing to the cadres'' style of his late father to enthuse and apprise workers of the party stand on issues. Be it the the protests against hydrocarbon exploration projects in Cauvery delta districts or the state-wide stir against the Citizenship Amendment Act and collection of ''two crore'' signatures against CAA, Stalin did his best to corner the governments at the Centre and state and at the same time and strengthened his party's electoral prospects.