MK Stalin's Big Test In First Tamil Nadu Polls Since Father Karunanidhi's Death

Tamil Nadu Assembly Election 2021: The political journey of MK Stalin began as a teen at a barber shop in the Gopalapuram neighbourhood of Chennai, where he started the "DMK Gopalapuram Youth Wing" with some friends

Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin, 68, faces his first Tamil Nadu election since his father and iconic politician M Karunanidhi - popular to his supporters as "Kalaignar" - died in 2018. But it is by no means his first solo outing - he led the DMK to a sweep in national elections just a year later in 2019. Karunanidhi, a political giant in Tamil Nadu like his lifelong rival J Jayalalithaa of AIADMK, showed early that he preferred his younger son when it came to the party. The political journey of MK Stalin began as a teen at a barber shop in the Gopalapuram neighbourhood of Chennai, where he started the "DMK Gopalapuram Youth Wing" with some friends. His arrest during the Emergency of 1975 and the death of Chitti Babu, a DMK functionary and his jail mate, allegedly from a brutal attack by police catapulted him into active politics.