Sonny side-up

CHENNAI: The long-anticipated elevation of DMK scion Udhayanidhi Stalin as Deputy Chief Minister was announced last week at the major cabinet reshuffle. Apart from being the Deputy CM, Sports and Youth Welfare Minister, Udhayanidhi has been handed over the additional portfolio of Planning and Development. The ascension of Udhayanidhi (46), a first-time MLA from Chepauk-Triplicane, has been on the cards for a long time now, with several DMK seniors pressing for it for years together.

To place this son-rise in context, recall that late former CM M Karunanidhi had waited for the better part of five decades before passing on the mantle to his son, MK Stalin. It’s a lesson learned the hard way for Stalin, who chose not to wait as long to name his successor. Stalin has been privy to the dip in fortunes, vis-a-vis, the opposition AIADMK, which has witnessed recurring leadership vacuums, both in the aftermath of the passing of patriarch MGR, as well as his next in line Jayalalithaa. In the absence of a succession plan, there’s a three-way split in the AIADMK today. Naysayers bemoan DMK’s change of guard reeks of nepotism, but one might be hard-pressed to find a political outfit where such successions have transpired without a filial stroke.

What DMK deserves plaudits for is the clinical format in which the seeds for Udhayanidhi’s rise was sown. The third generation leader catapulted into the public consciousness through cinema, a medium that served his grandfather well. Kalaignar moved audiences with his live-wire screenplay for the 1952 sociopolitical drama Parasakthi, starring Sivaji Ganesan. While Udhayanidhi did not share the patriarch’s prowess for prose or poetry, he became familiar to the masses in TN, first as a producer, and then as an actor in politically-tinged films like Maamannan and Manithan. The notion of using the silver screen as a superhighway into the hearts of the people was not lost on Udhayanidhi, who is aware of the symbiotic relationship that celluloid shares with statecraft in Tamil Nadu.

The filmy recall and connections forged on the basis of plainspeak will help Udhayanidhi, considering yet another actor, and a darling of the masses, Vijay has announced his political foray. However, compared to Vijay, Udhayanidhi has hit the ground running in terms of political activity. Having entered politics in 2018, he was elected as the party’s youth wing secretary in 2019, and actively campaigned for the DMK in 2021 assembly polls, where he was viewed as a worthy heir to the dynasty. More recently, he hasn’t shied from rocking the boat as he launched into fierce criticism of Sanatana Dharma, a move that earned him some well-deserved political street cred in Tamil Nadu, and adversaries in the northern belts.

At the grassroots level, Udhayanidhi has kept himself busy — conducting Dravidian model workshops, and engaging with the cadre, specifically, the young functionaries. His official duties include accountability for the department that disburses a monthly sum of Rs 1,000 for needy women, under the Kalaignar Magalir Urimai Thogai scheme, and it’s been continuing without much of a hullabaloo, possibly Udhayanidhi letting his work do the talking. Pitching Udhayanidhi as the next face/phase of the 75-year-old Dravidian outfit comes across as an affirmation of the party’s futuristic growth plans, riding on the youth factor, something sorely missing in the chief opposition.