M.K. Stalin is the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu since May 2021. He is the President of India’s oldest regional political party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) since 2018. In 1973, Stalin was elected to the general council of the DMK. He was jailed for a year in 1976 for protesting against the Emergency. In 1980, he launched the youth wing of the DMK. Stalin made his legislative debut in 1989 when he was elected from the Thousand Lights constituency in Chennai. The present tenure is his seventh term as a member of the Legislative Assembly. In 1996, as Chennai’s first directly elected mayor, he piloted the Singara Chennai (Beautiful Chennai) project that vastly improved Chennai’s infrastructure.