Stalin's Promotion: Not Dream Job, But A Step Up Nevertheless

It may not be the ideal promotion-but it's a big step up nevertheless. MK Stalin, 63 will serve as the Leader of the Opposition in Tamil Nadu if everything goes well. Newly elected legislators of his party the DMK have elected him as the leader of the DMK legislature party paving way for his promotion.

Mr Stalin's party, the DMK, won 89 seats in the recent state election, which was won by J Jayalalithaa, who defeated a 32-year record in Tamil Nadu to become the first Chief Minister to be re-elected for a consecutive term.

Her party, the AIADMK, won 134 of the 232 seats contested. The DMK won 89 - a big improvement upon its catch in 2011 of just 23 seats.

Mr Stalin was elected this morning as leader of his party's legislators or state legislators. Till 2006 Karunanidhi was the leader of opposition when DMK was the main opposition party. However in the 2011 elections actor Vijayakanth's DMDK became the main opposition party and Vijayakanth the Opposition leader.

Since 1996 his father chose him over older brother MK Alagiri as his political heir, Mr Stalin and his considerable base of supporters have been waiting for him to be announced as the DMK's presumptive Chief Minister. However, before the election results were declared last week, his father, M Karunanidhi, said that if the party won, it was he would head the government. Mr Karunanidhi is 93.

Mr Stalin, who won his first Assembly election in 1989, is now starting his sixth consecutive term as a state law-maker.

Yesterday, as Ms Jayalalithaa took oath in a green sari (an acknowledged superstition of hers), Mr Stalin, wearing a white dhoti, was seated in the 16th row,  inciting his father to allege a deliberate insult by the Chief Minister to the prospective  leader of the opposition.