Stripped of finance portfolio, PTR takes demotion in his stride

In what is widely perceived as the fall out of the 'Audio Leaks', PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR) has been stripped of the high-profile finance portfolio and shunted to the Information Technology department in the reshuffle carried out by Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday. He has been retained in the cabinet as dropping him would have been bad optics for the ruling DMK and a victory for the BJP which had released the audio tapes, writes ETV Bharat's MC Rajan.

Chennai:His impressive resume and domain expertise can't be matched by any neta in the state and no wonder, the articulate Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (PTR) was seen as the reformist face of the DMK and defender of the Dravidian ideology as well as its legacy for a wider audience beyond Tamil Nadu. Not in the mould of the typical career politician beholden to the leadership in the ruling DMK or any other Dravidian party, he has often been very forthright and blunt. In the ministerial rejig, the finance portfolio has been taken away from him and he will handle the IT department.

The cabinet reshuffle comes in the wake of the audio tapes released last month by the BJP state president K Annamalai, in which PTR is purportedly saying that the Chief Minister's son and Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin and son-in-law, V Sabareesan, have amassed Rs 30,000 crore in a year which even their grandfathers could not have in their lifetime. While PTR has dismissed them as fake and generated with Artificial Intelligencetechnology to tarnish his reputation and create a wedge between him and the DMK leadership, Stalin has termed it as mischievous 'cheap politics'.

Ever since the release of the audio tapes, subsequent to the DMK files by Annamalai, listing corruption charges against Stalin and DMK's first family as well as the top leaders of the party, speculation was rife in the ruling party that PTR might be dropped from the council of ministers. But, dropping him would have given a wrong signal and bad optics for the government, which had stepped into its third year in office earlier this week. However, the reshuffle was an impending one that saw the axing of Dairy Development Minister SM Nasar, a long-time close associate of Stalin. He had earned notoriety for hurling stones at the party cadre for the delay in bringing him a chair while supervising the preparations for the Chief Minister's visit. But, it was his son's interference that had cost him the ministerial berth.

The Chief Minister had replaced PTR with Thangam Thennarasu, who was hitherto Minister for Industries. Son of a party veteran and educated in the US, he had also served in the Karunanidhi government and is known as a performer and taskmaster. The industry portfolio has been entrusted to TRB Rajaa, inducted into the ministry on Thursday. Son of former Union Minister and DMK treasurer, TR Baalu, he is a three-time legislator, representing Mannargudi in the Cauvery Delta region.

Legitimately, PTR too takes pride in his family's legacy as it is inseparable from the origins of the Dravidian movement. His grandfather was a Chief Minister and stalwart of the Justice party, the forerunner of the DMK. It was he who popularised Sabarimala Ayyappa worship across the state. His father was a DMK heavyweight. Unlike other leaders of the DMK, PTR's family was deeply religious and given an exception by the party leadership. Even now, in his residence in Chennai, PTR has a small Vinayaga temple. He is a Dravidian to the core and yet religious, hailing from a family of believers in the rationalist movement.

He appears to have taken the reshuffle in his stride. In a Twitter post, PTR thanked Stalin and said “The past two years have been the most fulfilling in my life... Despite inheriting a record deficit and debt ratios, we have invested in record social welfare schemes as well as record capital spending, all while delivering record-setting fiscal improvements. This is the epitome of my public life and indeed of my life.” On the new assignment, he has this to say: “Information Technology – globally the #1 industry for investment and job-creation today... Though Tamil Nadu was a pioneer in this field in Thalaivar Kalaignar's (Karunanidhi) time, we have unfortunately lagged our potential in this sector in the4 last decade or so.”

Setting himself the target of re-establishing Tamil Nadu as a leading state in IT, he said, “I hope my own experience in establishing and managing a pioneering Global Capability Centre 15 years ago, and the connectivity with IT & ITES Industry gained during my professional career, will enrich my efforts in this new role.”

“With a long lineage, he is one leader in the DMK who does not owe everything to the late party patriarch Karunanidhi. His father PTR Palanivel Rajan's marginalisation by MK Alagiri, elder brother of Stalin expelled from the party, might have goaded PTR to bounce back in the Stalin regime and show that his family could not be written off, explains senior journalist M Kalyanaraman. In his view, PTR, who doesn't play by the rules of etiquette of the system, was a welcome contrast to the typical career neta and we need more, not fewer.