Shri M. K. Stalin

In the 2021 Assembly elections, M.K Stalin played a pivotal role in leading the campaign for the Secular Progressive Alliance, which secured an absolute majority with 159 seats out of 234, paving the way for him to take his oath as Chief Minister on May 7, 2021. Despite being sworn in during the second wave of the pandemic, he immediately got to work and set up a war room to monitor the status of essential medical supplies such as beds, ambulances, and oxygen. His quick response and dedication to helping citizens in need were evident when he personally attended to an SOS call from a lady, spoke with her for 30 minutes, and arranged for her a bed at a hospital, donning a PPE suit and visiting COVID-19 patients in their wards against the advice of his colleagues at Government ESI Medical College Hospital. M.K Stalin's leadership was marked by several notable achievements. He set up a new economic advisory council consisting of leading economists to address the state's economic challenges, and under his commanding leadership, Tamil Nadu went from being the state with the highest COVID-19 vaccine wastage to the one with the lowest COVID-19 wastage policy. In August 2021, he handed over appointment orders of the HR & CE Department to trained aspirants of all castes as temple priests, emphasizing his commitment to Periyar's fight for equal rights in worship for all those who believe in God. M.K Stalin's popularity continued to soar, as he ranked first among all Chief Ministers of India with 42% in favour in the "Mood of the Nation" survey conducted by the India Today magazine in 2021. He also made several impactful decisions, such as changing the name of Sri Lankan Tamil refugee camps to rehabilitation camps, emphasizing that "they are not orphans; we are there for them." In September 2021, he announced that Periyar's birth anniversary would be celebrated as Social Justice Day every year. M.K Stalin also took significant steps to review and address the legal cases filed by the previous government. His government withdrew over 5,570 legal cases filed by the previous AIADMK government from the past 10 years against journalists and protestors who sought the repeal of the three farm laws promulgated by the Union government, the Citizenship Amendment Act, methane extraction, neutrino project, Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, and the Chennai-Salem Expressway project. M.K Stalin launched many ground-breaking flagship programs such as theUngal Thoguthiyil Mudhalamaichar, Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam, Tamil Nadu's First Agriculture Budget, Illam Thedi Kalvi, Innuyir Kappom – Nammai Kakkum 48, Chief Minister's Dashboard, Naan Mudhalavan, Green Tamil Nadu Mission, Pudhumai Penn Thittam, and the Chief Minister's Breakfast Scheme, among others. M.K Stalin's pragmatic leadership style and administrative skills have won him accolades from the people of Tamil Nadu, domain experts, and other ministers across the country. He has shown a firm rejection of sycophancy, as evidenced by his decision to ask the Education Minister not to print his photographs on 65 lakh bags meant for distribution among schoolchildren in the state, opting instead to retain pictures of his political adversaries from the previous government that had sanctioned the project. Notably, he has refrained from using public money to enhance his popularity among the masses.