Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami is one of the significant Indian politicians of India who has prominently contributed to the political arena of Tamil Nadu. He is often referred to and called by K.P.S. He was born on 12th May 1954 in the small village of Siluvampalayam, Tamil Nadu. He is the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The tenure of his political regime shows us the determination, stability, strength, and courage in political rule.
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Biography of Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami
E.K. Palaniswami started his career in politics with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in 1974. Before serving himself as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 2017, he had been the Minister of Highways and Minor Ports in the Jayalalithaa and O.Panneerselvam-led ministers of the Tamil Nadu Government. He had consequently tried to conquer position in Assembly elections four times as contested from the Edappadi Constituency in the years 1989, 1991, 2011, and 2016, respectively.
Personal Life
| Name | Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami |
| Nickname(s) | Puratchi Tamilar, Edappadiyaar, E.P.S. |
| Date of birth | 12th May, 1954 |
| Age | 69 |
| Place of birth | Siluvampalayam, Salem District |
| Party Name | All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) |
| Education | 12th Pass |
| Profession | Agriculture and Politician |
| Father’s Name | V. Karuppa |
| Mother’s Name | Thavasi Ammal |
| Spouse | Ratha Palaniswami |
| Children | Mithun Kumar (son) |
| Religion | Hindu |
| Caste | OBC |
| Address | New D.No.6/77, Old D.No.3/153 Siluvampalayam, Nedungulam Village, Edappadi TK, Salem District |
| Awards | Paul Harris Fellow (2020)Honorary Doctorate (2019) |
The parents of K. Palaniswami were farmers. After completing his higher studies in school, he studied for a B.Sc degree from Sri Vasavi College, Erode, in 1976, but unfortunately, he could not complete the course. He was even the student union leader in college. He had his siblings – brother Govindraj and sister Ranjitham. He got married to Ratha Palaniswami and has a son named Mithun Kumar. He is an agriculturalist by occupation.
Political Career
Palaniswami entered politics as a levy for the AIADMK in 1974. Later, he became a crucial member of the party in the Salem quarter. He was first tagged to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 1989, representing Edappadi constituency, and won re-election in 1991. He was tagged Member of Parliament, representing Tiruchengodu constituency in the 12th Lok Sabha.
He surfaced as a dominant force in the AIADMK in the Western belt during the late 1990s. In July 2006, K.Palaniswami was appointed as the Propaganda Secretary, and in 2007, got appointed as Organizing Secretary. He was tagged from Edappadi constituency in 2011 and 2016 when the AIADMK surfaced as a ruling party. He sluggishly gained elevation as one of the strong confines of J. Jayalalithaa along with O. Paneerselvam and Dindigul C. Srinivasan. He served as the Minister of Highways and Minor Anchorages from 2011 and also served as the Minister of Public Works from 2016 in the J. Jayalalithaa, O. Panneerselvam, and in his own ministry. In 2014, He was appointed as a member of the AIADMK party disciplinary committee. In 2016, he was appointed as the headquarters secretary of AIADMK, succeeding P.Palaniappan.
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In politics, accidental leaders ultimately fade down after holding the spotlight in the positions to which they were pelted by circumstances or by their masters. Only a few manage to change the drift in their favor or outsmart their political instructors.
Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister EdappadiK. Palaniswami belongs to that strain of politicians who crop from relative obscurity and seize openings to checkmate opponents by making the right moves on the political chessboard. Starting from the lower peeled, he has taken over as general clerk of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a party that had ruled the State for over 30 times. Ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2024, this party puts him in the motorist’s seat of an AIADMK-led alliance, which will probably include the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Political Timeline
| 1980s | Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami joined politics, and soon he became one of the members of AIADMK. |
| 1989 | He won the state Assembly elections from the Edappadi seat for the first time by defeating L.Palanisamy of DMK with 1364 votes. |
| 1991 | He was again re-elected from the same constituency of the state Assembly. He defeated P. Kolandi Gounder of PMK. |
| 1996 | He lost his Edappadi seat in the 1996 Assembly elections. However, he secured the third position in elections with 28.3% of the vote share. |
| 1998 | He won the Lok Sabha seat from the Tiruchengode constituency by defeating Dr. K.P. Ramalingam by a margin of 104,809 votes. |
| 2001 | He did not contest the Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections. |
| 2006 | After ten long years, he again tried to win the Assembly election but could not succeed. He lost the election against V. Kaveri. |
| 2011 | K.Palaniswami won the election from Edappadi after 20 years(approx.) by defeating M.Karthe of PMK. |
| 2016 | He again won the election from the Edappadi seat with a margin of 42022 votes by defeating N. Annadurai, one of the strongest candidates of PMK. |
| 2017 | After the tenure of Jayalalithaa, Sasikala tried to snatch the position and power from C.M. O Panneerselvam, but she could not succeed. She went to jail due to some allegations and O Panneerselvam stepped down from power. Eventually, AIADMK elected K.Palaniswami as the new Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. |
| 2021 | Though he had won the Assembly elections from the Edappadi constituency of Salem district in Tamil Nadu, he could not help the AIADMK party come to power for the third time. |
Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami during his tenure as a Chief Minister (2017 – 2021)
Palaniswami was elected and became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in February 2017, following the abdication of O.Panneerselvam, who became principal minister after the demise of former principal minister J.Jayalalithaa won the 2016 Legislative Assembly election as CM seeker of AIADMK. He was sworn in on 16 February 2017 before a crowd of party workers, along with his 32-member press. He also holds the charge of the Home, Prohibition & Excise Departments along with the other portfolios typically held by the Chief Ministers and not mentioned away. He’s tagged from the Edappadi constituency. During his reign, he introduced colorful schemes like the Kudimaramaththu Work, the FAME India scheme, and the Amma Patrol in Tamil Nadu to ascertain the security of women and children in public places.
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In May 2018, police opened fire on demonstrators against a Sterlite factory that was contaminating original groundwater in Thoothukudi, killing 13 people. While ordering a one-man commission into the violence, Palaniswami also declared the blowups were in “tone defense.”
On 28 May 2018, he led the Tamil Nadu Government to order the endless check of the Sterlite Bobby factory. “The Amma government has issued an order to have the Sterlite factory closed down permanently in compliance to the sentiments of the people of Thoothukudi,” Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palaniswami told intelligencers in the evening after chairing a meeting of his party lawmakers at the AIADMK headquarters in Chennai.
Still, during the 2019 elections, AIADMK queried in alliance with the BJP and was swept out of Congress when the DMK-led alliance won 38 out of 39 seats in the state.
In the year 2019, he went on a 13-day stint in the United States, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates to promote foreign investment in Tamil Nadu. He had even launched the Yaadhum Oore program (lit. all countries, grounded on Purananuru 192) to encourage the Tamil diaspora to tore-invest in Tamil Nadu, in the same line as other countries with large NRI populations similar as Kerala. During the trip, he secured 3 lakh crores worth of foreign investment, a lesser quantum than his precursor Jayalalithaa did.
In February 2020, he led the Tamil Nadu government to declare the Cauvery delta region as a defended Special Agriculture Zone. The advertisement was extensively hailed by political parties and growers organizations.
In the year 2020, he led the AIADMK government to pass an order for 7.5 shares in Medical Admissions for Govt. School Students. He took action to set up government medical sodalities in recently formed 11 sections, which offered 1,650 further seats to 3,400 seats.
Under his governance, Tamil Nadu was rated as the stylish governed state grounded on a compound indicator in the environment of sustainable development according to the Public Affairs Index- 2020 as released by the Public Affairs Centre in October 2020. Palaniswami is also praised for his administration during the coronavirus epidemic. Tamil Nadu was one of the many countries that didn’t register negative growth in the period of the epidemic.
image source: India Times
During his governance, Tamil Nadu was the stylish performing big state overall from the time 2018 to 2021. With a gross state domestic product of $ 290 billion or Rs. 21.6 lakh crore, Tamil Nadu became India’s alternate-largest frugality.
In 2020, the study “States of the State” of India Today said that Palaniswami-led Tamil Nadu has outgunned in 11 orders from an aggregate of 12, including frugality, tourism, structure, inclusive development, law and order, along with entrepreneurship, cleanliness, terrain, health, education and husbandry. Tamil Nadu has been chosen for this recognition for the third successive time.
On 3 May 2021, Palaniswami abdicated as Chief Minister following AIADMK’s defeat in the 2021 Tamil Nadu Assembly Election.
Leader of the Opposition, 2021
After the party lost the assembly elections in May 2021, K. Palaniswami won the Edappadi constituency and was tagged as the Leader Of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.
Leadership Tussle with O.Panneerselvam, 2022
On 14 June 2022, citing the party’s troubles in the past, AIADMK quarter registers and other elderly party members spoke out to duck the “binary leadership” system and came out intimately in favor of a strong unitary leader to strengthen the organization.
Edappadi K.Palaniswami sympathizers pushed for the change in the party’s leadership structure by carrying a political achievement against O. Panneerselvam, who had come weak within the party. According to numerous sources of the AIADMK’s 75 quarter registers, hardly 10 supported him. Of the party’s 66 MLAs, only five MLAs were reportedly on O.Panneerselvam’s side, and lower than 20 percent of the party’s general council members behind him ahead of a pivotal general council meeting on 23 June 2022, which was anticipated to handpick the single leadership to the party.
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On 23 June 2022, A. Tamil Magan Hussain was unanimously tagged as the Presidium Chairman of the party at a general council meeting held at the Shrivaaru Venkatachalapathy Palace in Vanagaram, Chennai.
On 30 June 2022, Edappadi K.Palaniswami wrote a letter to O.Panneerselvam asserting the ultimate desisted from being the party fellow as the amendments made to the party’s reg in the 2020 December superintendent commission meeting weren’t recognized in the general council meeting held on 23 June.
Net Worth of K.Palaniswami
| Net Worth | Rs. 6.41 crore |
| Assets | Rs. 6.7 crore |
| Liabilities | Rs. 29.75 lakhs |
Interesting Facts about Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami
Palaniswami was a Jaggery dealer before entering into politics. During this time period, he was called ‘Jaggery Palaniswami.‘ During the 1989 state Assembly elections, AIADMK divided into two coalitions. He queried beneath the incline symbol under Jayalalitha’s leadership.
Position in Parliament of India
| Constituency | Position | From | To |
| Tiruchengodu | Member of Parliament | 10th March, 1998 | 26th April, 1999 |
Image source: India times
Position in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly
| Constituency | Position | From | To |
| Edappadi | Member of Legislative Assembly Member of Legislative Assembly Minister of Highways and Minor Ports Minister of Highways and Minor Ports and Minister of Public Works Chief Minister Leader of the Opposition | 6th February, 1989 23rd May, 2011 16th May, 2011 23rd May, 2016 17th February, 2017 11th May, 2021 | 12th May, 1996 Present 22nd May, 2016 6th May, 2021 6th May, 2021 Incumbent |
Conclusion
Edappadi Karuppa Palaniswami was also a low-crucial minister in the Tamil Nadu government. But events conspired to put him on the center stage of the state’s politics, and over the last three times, the TN chief minister, who was sworn in under dramatic circumstances, has proved musketeers and foes wrong.
But now, he is well and truly settled; both the government and the ruling AIADMK party are forcefully under his control.
From attracting investments to using governance systems during the Covid-19 epidemic (though the Opposition has indicted him of misleading it, and there has been a big shaft in cases) to maintaining a delicate balance of being assertive in the state without making Delhi uncomfortable, he’s now an indigenous satrap who can hold his own in the Tamil Nadu political arena.
