DMK MP Kanimozhi was appointed as the parliamentary standing leader of the party earlier this week. This marked his rise and set the stage for him to assume a prominent national role.
She has taken over as Parliamentary Floor Leader from DMK leader Karunanidhi’s daughter and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K.Stalin’s sister Kanimozhi senior party leader and former Union Shipping Minister DR Balu to handle the affairs of the party in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.
Top DMK leaders have said that Kanimozhi’s new role is part of a strategy to prepare the next generation of leaders for the national stage. The party’s senior leader in the previous Lok Sabha, DR Balu, is now 83 years old. As a DMK leader said when asked about Kanimozhi’s appointment, “MK Stalin in Tamil Nadu and Kanimozhi in Delhi”. For Stalin, former Union Minister Murasoli Maran’s sister could play a fatherly role.
Due to his growing stature in Thoothukudi, the constituency he has represented since 2019, there is a consensus among the DMK that he is the right man for the job.
This time, he won with 3.93 lakh votes, an improvement from his margin of 3.47 lakh votes in 2019.
He went to jail for the party,” said a senior DMK minister, adding that Kanimozhi spent nearly six months in Tihar jail following his arrest in the 2G spectrum allocation case.
A DMK leader said, “He won the Lok Sabha seat when the Rajya Sabha seat would have been easy. Now he has been re-elected in the election where the opposition parties lost their deposit. He played an important role during the Thoothukudi floods last December. “There is nothing surprising about this appointment,” he said.
Another senior minister said, “Irrespective of DMK’s fate in the 2026 assembly elections, Kanimozhi will be the Delhi face of DMK till 2029.”
Rise of Kanimozhi
Starting out as a poet, activist and journalist, Kanimozhi initially did not engage in public life. In July 2007, amid tensions between Karunanidhi and his nephews Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran, he was elected to the Rajya Sabha. He served as his father’s trusted ambassador in Delhi, a job once done by Murasoli Maran.
Subsequently, there were reportedly concerns about Kanimozhi’s role politically and how it might affect Stalin. But after Karunanidhi’s death in 2019 and Stalin becoming the Chief Minister in 2021, the equations in the family changed. A senior DMK leader said that Stalin had now “assumed an enormous role in the party and the family”.
A DMK leader said that there is no chance of a problem between Stalin and Kanimozhi. A member of the DMK’s first family said he was often seen as unhappy with his role politically.
Those close to him were suspected of plotting against Stalin and Udayanidhi. But he ended it in a way that sent a clear signal to Stalin’s family that he was not a rival to Stalin or his son.
The source said that it was Karunanidhi’s third wife Kanimozhi’s mother, Rajathi Ammal, who assured Stalin that she would play the role assigned to him (in Delhi) after Karunanidhi’s death and reminded him to play the role of father in Karunanidhi’s absence.
DMK sources, requesting anonymity, said Kanimozhi said, “He knows what he wants now. A party leader said he has clarity. Udayanidhi calls her aunty (aunty) and assumes the role of Stalin’s father.
In the Lok Sabha elections, he (Stalin) was keen on his campaigns in Tuticorin and monitored it almost every day.
Another person said Kanimozhi was never “aggressive or ambitious”. The relationship between Stalin and Kanimozhi strengthened as he distanced himself from those who attacked Stalin and Udayanidhi.
As the family is convinced that she is not a threat, she is now entrusted with important responsibilities.
