The elite, erudite and eloquent face of Tamil Nadu council of ministers, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, was entrusted with a new responsibility of steering the state’s IT sector in Thursday’s Cabinet reshuffle that left in the wilderness former dairy minister S.M. Nasar, who was caught on camera throwing a stone at a party worker a few months back. Thiaga Rajan, too, was caught dropping bricks in a purported conversation of his. That leaked audio clip, he claimed, was fabricated, thanks to modern-day advancements in the same technology that his future ministry will be taking care of.
Though PTR swore to restore the pioneering position the state had enjoyed in the field when M. Karunanidhi was chief minister — but suffered a lag for a decade — and vowed also to harness his experience in “establishing and managing a pioneering Global Capability Centre 15 years ago” in his new role, the change in portfolio was being speculated upon in political circles for quite some time. Whosoever wanted the finance portfolio to be yanked out of his grasp, for whatever reason, has achieved their goal though the man thanks to CM M.K. Stalin for assigning to him what is now “globally the #1 industry for investment and job creation”.
Finance and human resource development have been handed over to Thangam Thennarasu, who has hitherto been presiding over the industries ministry holding several investor conclaves besides making the arrangements for the Global Investors meet in 2024.
Newcomer T.R.B. Rajaa will now have to carry forward the work started by Thennarasu in turning the state into a US $ 1 trillion economy by 2030 to realise the chief minister’s dream, while T. Mano Thangaraj will have to take care of milk supply and dairy development. It may be a job quite different from the one he was doing at the department of information technology and digital services but one which will nevertheless be rewarding.
Stalin, a politician who takes decisions in a measured way and is never one to succumb to knee-jerk reactions, has, however, been forced to act in two cases involving a breach of the “duty, dignity and discipline” the party’s founders used to swear by.
