CHENNAI: In terms of experience, he is miles ahead of his party colleagues, having won multiple elections to become the longest serving Assembly member in this House, and also has rich ministerial experience after becoming a Cabinet member way back in 1991.
However, despite being touted as the senior-most leader in the fledgling TVK, veteran politician KA Sengottaiyan is only fifth in the Cabinet pecking order.
According to the seniority list of ministers that the State government issued following the expansion of the Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay-led Cabinet, Sengottaiyan is behind N Anand, Aadhav Arjuna, KG Arunraj – all of them rookies in Tamil Nadu politics and debutants in State Assembly.
He is followed by other newbies, including P Venkataraman, R Nirmalkumar, A Rajmohan, TK Prabhu and S Keerthana.
Alliance party leaders who were inducted into the Cabinet during the expansion on May 21 are outside the top 10 ranks. Congress’s P Viswanathan and S Rajesh Kumar, IUML’s AM Shahjahan and VCK’s Vanni Arasu are in 11 to 14th rank, respectively.
The remaining ministers in the order of seniority are A Vijay Tamilan Parthiban, B Rajkumar, V Sampath Kumar, M Vijay Balaji, K Vignesh, K Thennarasu, J Mohamed Farvas, V Gandhiraj, K Jegadeshwari, Vinoth, C Vijayalakshmi, D Sarathkumar, Ramesh, P Mathan Raja, N Marie Wilson, Srinath, S Kamali, R Kumar, RV Ranjithkumar, D Logesh Tamilselvan, and Rajeev.