Chief Minister M K Stalin has made a welcome departure in appointing Palanivel Thiagarajan (PT) as Minister of Finance. PT has a proud lineage; his forebears were actively involved in the state’s political evolution. His grandfather P T Rajan was the last President of the Justice Party and served as Chief Minister of Madras Presidency in 1936. PT’s father was close to DMK supremo M Karunanidhi and functioned as minister and later as Speaker of the legislative assembly.
After graduating from NIT Tiruchi, PT completed his Masters and won his Doctorate in Applied Computers at the State University of New York. He pursued his MBA in Finance from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He served as an Investment Banker with the Lehmann Brothers and later with Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore. In his term as an MLA over the last five years, he has been part of the think-tank of the party.
For long political heavyweights for finance…
I refer to the departure: the Dravidian parties were known for their pioneering social concerns and reforms. There was the emphasis on distributive justice. This helped in the amelioration of a lot of socially neglected sections. The election platforms consisted of a vast range of benefits, especially for the poorer and weaker sections. To facilitate this, the finance portfolio was given to political heavyweights of the party. Almost all through the 50 years the portfolio was held by party leaders with great articulation to take the policies to the masses. We thus had M Karunanidhi, V R Nedunchezhiyan, K A Mathiazhagan, Nanjil K Manoharan, K Anbazhagan…. This continued right up to 2021 when O Panneerselvam served as finance minister for long. The budget speech of the finance minister, often spread over 100 pages, was more on the achievements of the party through the year and often lacked a plan for economic development for the future. The policies were mostly limited to the elections. There was a great deal of ad hocism in announcing policies that did not have much to do with the budget proposals or long-term content.
This is not unique to Tamil Nadu. I have had the opportunity to interact with the finance ministers and other ministers handling economic portfolios continuously since 1973 (I have been an invitee to the annual Economic Editors’ Conferences organised by the Govt of India for 45 years). For long it was common experience to appoint as finance minister an ex-chief minister of the state or a political heavyweight. I cite the succession of finance ministers during 1985-91: it started with V P Singh followed Rajiv Gandhi, N D Tiwari, S B Chavan, Madhu Dandavate and Yashwant Sinha. The arubathumoovar of annual appointments ended in 1991 when Dr Manmohan Singh took charge. Since then over the next three decades, we have had strong professionals with sharp insights into economic and development issues at the helm. This helped in the multifaceted growth recorded by the country.
The exposure of these finance ministers to global developments was also an important factor.
Succession of strong civil servants…
I remember the great contributions of C Subramaniam as the finance minister of the state and later of the Centre. There was also the additional fact of Tamil Nadu served by a strong succession of brilliant civil servants. The brightest of these have been entrusted with the finance portfolio. T A Verghese occupied the post for the longest term; and we had G Ramachandran, S Guhan, K Venkatesan, P V Rajaraman, N Narayanan, K Shanmugam, S Krishnan… to mention a few.
We also had S Venkitaramanan and K P Geethakrishnan of the Tamil Nadu cadre who later rose to the position as finance secretaries at the Centre and who did lend their expertise to the economic development of the state.
Tamil Nadu has evolved as the second-largest state economy. It has a well-diversified industrial base. The highly urbanised state has its development well dispersed among its districts. Its rich infrastructure in terms of airports, seaports, road network and power capacity has been attracting handsome investments. PT’s experience with corporates, his education and familiarity with global economies, aided by a strong group of civil servants, should be of great strength. We doubly welcome PT at the helm of finance and record our admiration for Chief Minister Stalin making the departure.
