Chennai/UNI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and ruling DMK president M.K.Stalin's son Udhayanidhi Stalin was on Wednesday sworn in as a Minister in the state cabinet.

At a brief function held at the Raj Bhavan, Governor R.N.Ravi administered the oath of office and secrecy to 45-year-old Udhayanidhi Stalin, who was elected from the Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni Constituency in the city in his maiden entry into electoral politics.

The Chief Minister, his cabinet colleagues and senior leaders of the party were present at the swearing-in ceremony held at the Durbar Hall in Raj Bhavan.

After being sworn in as a Minister and after exchanging pleasantries with the Governor and the Chief Minister, Udhayanidhi was greeted by senior Ministers.

Later, Udhayanidhi paid tributes at the memorial of his grandfather and late Chief Minister and DMK Patriarch M.Karunanidhi and at DMK Founder and Dravidian stalwart C.N.Annadurai on the Marina beach front.

Later, he went to the State Secretariat and assumed charge as the Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development and Special Programme Implementation.

DMK sources said the ascension of Udhayanidhi Stalin, who is also the DMK Youth Wing Secretary, as the Minister that too in a short span of 18 months after the DMK came to power was seen as an apt reward for his hard work.

Senior DMK leader and Higher Education Minister K.Ponmudy termed the induction of Udhayanidhi into the Cabinet as a belated one and he should have been made a minister 18 months back considering his commendable job he did during the campaign in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 Assembly elections in which DMK rode back to power with a thumping majority after a gap of ten years.

Though he had initially stayed away from active politics, he was one of the DMK’s star campaigners in the 2019 and 2021 polls, in which he successfully contested for the first time and got elected to the State Assembly from a Constituency which had earlier elected his grandfather thrice.

After his campaign tour turned out to be a stupendous success with the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance sweeping the 2019 Lok Sabha polls winning 39 of the 40 seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, he was rewarded with the leadership of the party’s youth wing.

His father had held this post for a long time from 1982 and 2017 before he became the Treasurer and the President of the DMK.

Udhayanidhi is also a prominent actor starting from his debut film "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi", a full fledged comedy film that turned out to be a huge hit at the box office, following which he came a prominent hero in the Tamil film industry and played the role of protagonist in several films, which also turned out to be a big success at the box office. He had also produced several films.