Demand to elevate Udhayanidhi as Deputy CM has grown stronger but time not yet ripe: TN CM Stalin

CHENNAI: Chief Minister and DMK president M K Stalin on Monday admitted that clamour within his party has grown stronger to elevate his son and Sports Minister, Udhayanidhi as his deputy but indicated the time is yet to arrive.

Speaking to reporters after attending a welfare aid distribution event in his constituency of Kolathur, Stalin, "The demand has grown stronger, but the time is not ripe.” He was responding to a pointed question on when the Chief Minister or the party intends to appoint Udhayanidhi as the deputy chief minister. 

The CM's statement could be seen as a hint that the right time for elevating Udhayanidhi was yet to arrive.

For quite some time, there has been expectation and speculation within the party that Udhayanidhi will be made the deputy chief minister. It became a talking point ever since Udhayanidhi was appointed minister in Stalin’s cabinet in 2022.

Talks about his rumoured elevation crop up whenever his loyalists in the cabinet and the party publicly propose it to the high command. However, the recent trigger for the conjecture was when state school education minister Mahesh Poyyamozhi publicly urged CM Stalin to elevate his son Udhayanidhi as the deputy CM during the second state conference of the DMK youth wing, held in Salem a few months before the parliamentary elections.

There was also speculation that the Arivalayam could formalise the elevation ahead of the Chief Minister’s proposed business trip to the United States this months.

Even Udhayanidhi sought to silence the rumours during a youth wing meeting held in Chennai last month where he dismissed it as "media gossip being improvised by even some of his own lieutenants to curry favour with the high command."

However, the Chief Minister's cryptic statement on Monday has only provided more political fodder. The fact that the CM has not fully ruled out the idea of appointing Udhayanidhi as his deputy has made DMK's youth wing members hopeful of the party leadership being favourably inclined to the minister's imminent elevation and, with it, a change of guard in the party.

(With inputs from PTI)