Stalin’s envoy: In Kanimozhi’s elevation, consensus about party’s voice in Delhi  

Top DMK leaders said Kanimozhi’s new role was part of the strategy to prepare the next generation of leaders for the national stage. In the previous Lok Sabha, the role was helmed by party veteran T R Baalu, who is now 83 years old. “M K Stalin in Tamil Nadu and Kanimozhi in Delhi,” as a DMK leader put it, when asked about Kanimozhi’s appointment. For Stalin, his sister can play the role that former Union Minister Murasoli Maran played for his father.

Across the DMK ranks, there is a consensus that she is the right person for the job, with her growing stature in Thoothukudi, the constituency she has represented since 2019. This time, she won with 3.93 lakh votes, an improvement from her 2019 margin of 3.47 lakh votes. “She went to prison for the party,” said a senior DMK minister, referring to the almost six-month period that Kanimozhi spent in Tihar Jail following her arrest in the 2G spectrum allocation case.

A DMK leader said, “She won a Lok Sabha seat when a Rajya Sabha seat would have been easier. She has now been re-elected in an election where the Opposition lost deposits. She played a crucial role during the Thoothukudi floods last December. There is nothing to be surprised about by this appointment.”

Another senior minister said that Kanimozhi would be the DMK’s Delhi face until 2029, “irrespective of the DMK’s fate in the 2026 Assembly polls”.

Kanimozhi’s rise

Kanimozhi started as a poet, activist and journalist and initially was not active in public life. In July 2007, amid tensions between Karunandihi and his grand nephews Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran, she was elected to the Rajya Sabha. She served as her father’s trusted envoy in Delhi, a job once Murasoli Maran did.

Subsequently, there were said to be concerns about the role Kanimozhi would assume politically and how that would impact Stalin. However, the equations within the family changed after Karunanidhi died in 2019 and after Stalin became CM in 2021. A senior DMK leader said that Stalin had now “taken on a magnanimous role within the party and family”.

A DMK leader said there was “no scope for issues between Stalin and Kanimozhi”. A source in the DMK’s first family said, “She was often seen as unhappy in her role politically. People close to her were suspected of plotting against Stalin and Udhayanidhi. But she ended it, sending out a clear signal to the Stalin family that she is not a competitor to Stalin or her son.”

The source said it was Kanimozhi’s mother Rajathi Ammal, Karunanidhi’s third wife, “who after Karunanidhi’s death assured Stalin that her daughter would play the role (in Delhi) assigned to her and reminded him to play the role of a father in absence of Karunanidhi”.

Sources in the DMK, requesting anonymity, said Kanimozhi “now knows what she wants”. One party leader said, “She has clarity. Udhayanidhi calls her athai (aunt) and Stalin has assumed a father figure role. In the Lok Sabha polls, he (Stalin) was keen about her campaigns in Thoothukudi, monitoring it almost every other day.”

Another person, a family insider, said Kanimozhi had never been “aggressive or ambitious”. She said, “The relationship between Stalin and Kanimozhi strengthened significantly after she gained clarity and distanced herself from those who attacked Stalin and Udhayanidhi. She is now entrusted with crucial responsibilities because the family is convinced she is not a threat.”