In a major reshuffle of portfolios of his council of Ministers, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday, May 11, 2023, divested Palanivel Thiaga Rajan of his Finance and Human Resources Management portfolios and allocated them to senior Cabinet member Thangam Thennarasu. Mr. Rajan is the new Minister for Information Technology and Digital Services.
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The Industries portfolio, hitherto held by the soft-spoken and articulate Mr. Thennarasu, would be handled by T.R.B. Raaja, who was inducted into the Cabinet earlier in the day.
A banker-turned-third generation politician, Mr. Rajan was one of the most prominent faces of the Stalin Cabinet with a nationwide appeal.
Credited with measures to set the financial and economic health of Tamil Nadu back on track in the post-COVID-19 pandemic period, Mr. Rajan was known to speak his mind and is a strong critic of the right wing politics.
His fortunes took a beating in the wake of the release of two short audio clips attributed to him by BJP state president K Annamalai. In the audio clips, the person was heard alleging the Chief Minister’s son Udhayanidhi Stalin and son-in-law Sabareesan had amassed huge wealth and that the DMK party did not have a proper structure. Mr. Rajan had alleged the audio tapes were fabricated and is believed to have explained the same to Mr. Stalin recently.
Mr. Rajan will now be handling a key portfolio considering that Tamil Nadu is pitching big to expand its base in the Information Technology sector.
Mr. Thennarasu, son of former Minister V. Thangapandian, is a five-time MLA and was School Education Minister in the M. Karunanidhi Cabinet (2006-11) and the Uniform School System (Samacheer Kalvi) was introduced during his tenure. His sister Thamizhachi Thangapandian, is the South Chennai MP. Mr. Thennarasu represents the Thiruchuli Assembly constituency for the third time and Aruppukottai twice.
An official release from the Raj Bhavan on the recommendation of the Chief Minister, the Governor, R.N. Ravi, has additionally allotted the Tamil Development portfolio (held by Mr. Thennarasu) to Information and Publicity Minister M.P. Saminathan.
Mano Thangaraj, who was till recently Information Technology Minister, will now handle the portfolio of Milk and Dairy Development following the recent sacking of S.M. Nasar from the Cabinet
In March last year, the portfolios of Ministers R.S. Rajakannappan and S.S. Sivasankar were swapped. Nine months later, Mr. Udhayanidhi Stalin was inducted into the Cabinet in December last when the change in portfolios and subject allocations were effected for 10 Ministers.
