Tamil Nadu Assembly election 2021, MK Stalin profile: DMK chief registers third win in Kolathur

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president MK Stalin registered his third consecutive victory from the Kolathur Assembly constituency.

Stalin who led the DMK campaign against the AIADMK-BJP alliance in Tamil Nadu in the Assembly election, defeated an old rival, senior AIADMK hand Aadhi Rajaram by a margin of 70,384 votes. Other opponents of the duo included AMMK’s 54-year-old businessman J Arumugam and Makkal Needhi Maiam’s A Jagadish Kumar (31), a real estate businessman.

The DMK is set to form government in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.

Stalin is the son of former chief minister late M Karunanidhi. Stalin started his political career early and won for the first time from Thousand Light constituency in Chennai in 1989.

Karunanidhi groomed MK Stalin from an early age. He campaigned as a 14-year-old boy in the 1967 election in Tamil Nadu. Now, at 68, MK Stalin hopes to become the Tamil Nadu chief minister and step into his father’s shoes that many of his critics say is an uphill task for the DMK president, according to this India Today report.

Stalin became the first directly-elected Mayor of Chennai in 1996 after an amendment to the Corporation Act. During his tenure, Chennai acquired 10 major flyovers to tackle traffic congestion and 18 new parks. He was re-elected Mayor in 2001. Two years later, he became DMK's Deputy General Secretary. In 2008, he became treasurer – a position his father had held before becoming DMK president, reports NDTV.

This is the first Tamil Nadu Assembly election for Stalin in which he does not have the mass appeal of his father late M Karunanidhi, the former chief minister. But in his first electoral challenge after his father's death, the DMK swept the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, winning 38 of Tamil Nadu's 39 seats. Stalin hoped that the record stays and takes him to the Chief Minister's chair this time.

Election date and timing

The Tamil Nadu Assembly polls were held on 6 April 2021, along with Kerala and Puducherry. The day also saw phase three polls in Assam and West Bengal. 92,000 polling booths were there for the assembly polls. The counting of the votes took place on 2 May.

The official notification of the Assembly polls in the state was scheduled for 12 March. The nomination of candidates were accepted from then till 19 March. The scrutiny of nominations was done on 20 March and the last date for withdrawal of candidature was 22 March.

The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly has a total number of 234 seats, of which 45 are reserved constituencies (42 SC constituencies and 3 ST Constituencies). The current term of the Assembly ends on 24 May 2021.