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Meet PTR, the uncouth and foul-mouthed Minister in the DMK Govt

Vallavaraayan

PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan who is supposedly from an ‘illustrious’ family of politicians, has been making headlines for matters unrelated to his portfolio ever since he became Finance Minister in the Stalin-led DMK government in Tamil Nadu.

He is a fourth-generation dynast politician about which he has no qualms boasting time and again in every medium, every platform and every tweet.

He has so far been riding on the good name of his father PTR Palanivel Rajan who had served as a Speaker from 1996 to 2001 and also as a Minister in the Karunanidhi government of 2006.

This has helped him gain clout in the party and also get elected MLA twice from Madurai Central constituency.

Palanivel Thiagarajan supposedly has a management degree in finance from the prestigious MIT-Sloan School of Management which comes across as hard to believe given the abusive language he spews while holding the position of a Minister in government. One can only wonder the arrogant bully he would have been in his school and college years going by the way he behaves on social media.

He also boasts of having worked with the Lehmann Brothers from where he apparently ‘quit’ in the year 2008, which incidentally happens to be the year the financial services firm collapsed and filed bankruptcy.

So, if at all there exists a ‘hall of shame’ in his alma maters, Palanivel Thiagarajan’s name would definitely find its place. If they don’t, they should definitely consider having one, so that the rotten apple is not placed with other distinguished personalities in these institutions.

The Self-Trumpeting Narcissist 

If one were to see any interview, press meet or even a tweet of Palanivel Thiagarajan, it would be more about him blowing his own trumpet than about the issue.

He is known for being a heavy-head who quite often keeps flaunting his dynastic privilege, his wealth and even his GRE/GMAT score.

The reason he comes across as a narcissist is because not only does he keep singing praises about himself, he quite often derogates people who disagrees with him in a manner that is unbefitting for a person in public life.

For example, he had once name-called BJP Tamil Nadu President K. Annamalai who had just made his political entry in 2020.

Thiagarajan said

this clown spouts such nonsense, on such a regular basis, that joke value is too much! So, I will make this one exception. Please check out his statements on Tamil and Periyar, who was in Congress till 1925,.

This tweet has however been deleted now.

A Cyber-Bully 

Before becoming a Minister in the present DMK government, Palanivel Thiagarajan who has been an MLA since 2016 was also the DMK IT Wing head which essentially means he was the head of the troll mob of the DMK. He probably still is as DMK’s official website still names him as the Secretary of the party’s IT wing.

More than the role of a Finance Minister, Palanivel Thiagarajan seems to be donning the role of chief troll who indulges in cyber-bullying.

Though it is a politician’s business to criticize, take sly jibes or give rebuttals to political opponents and critics, it is important that it is delivered in a civil manner.

But as former AIADMK Minister D. Jayakumar has pointed in his recent scathing letter, there seems to be a huge gap between Palanivel Thiagarajan and civility.

Here are some of the instances when Palanivel Thiagarajan resorted to making personal attacks on political opponents and even common netizens.

PTR Vs ‘Neutral’ Political Analyst Sumanth Raman

A few months before the Assembly Elections, Palanivel Thiagarajan attacked Sumath C Raman on Twitter by calling him a ‘pseudo-intellectual who is given space that far exceeds any vestige of competence’.

His tweet read:

“This Pseudo-Intellectual is mysteriously given exposure on TV channels that far exceeds any vestige of competence, much like the hacks the BJP sends as “neutral” commentators

Now the truth is out. Accusing the DMK of BJP-level bigotry & divisive hate, reveals his jaundiced mind.”

This tweet has now been deleted.

Irked by this, Sumanth C Raman dissed the DMK IT wing head with a stinging rebuttal stating that generations of wealth, dynastic wealth and foreign education did not give him the grace of public discourse.

In another incident, he called Sumanth Raman a ‘kiruku paya’  (foolish guy in Tamil) during an interview.

Even during the recent baby shower controversy, he attacked Sumanth C Raman.

PTR Vs Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Just days after becoming Finance Minister, in an interview to The Hindu, Palanivel Thiagarajan called Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev a ‘publicity hound’ and a ‘charlatan’.

Dismissing Sadhguru’s call for relieving Hindu temples from government control he said, “In the case of Jaggi, he is a publicity hound and charlatan who is trying to find another angle to make more money.”  He had also called Jaggi Vasudev a ‘commercial operator’ pretending to use god and religion to get help.

In another instance, digging up an old tweet of Sadhguru that was posted years ago, Palanivel Thiagarajan resorted to taking jibes in bad taste.

Sadhguru in June 2015 had tweeted that Hindu is a geographical identity and implied that every living being born in this land is Hindu.

Palanivel Thiagarajan, who was supposed to be busy preparing the budget for the state, posted a screenshot of this tweet and wrote in his caption “Multi-DIMENSION-al” charlatan.

PTR Vs Malini Parthasarathy

In response to the disparaging remarks made by Palanivel Thiagarajan on Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Isha Foundation had published a statement saying that it was appalled at the personal attack made by a person holding such high office. The Hindu had published this statement by Isha Foundation in the form of an article.

Malini Parthasarathy, The Hindu Publishing Group’s Chairperson had shared this response in her Twitter profile. In this case, Palanivel Thiagarajan resorted to shooting the messenger saying that Malini Parthasarathy needs ‘counselling’ and not destroy The Hindu’s brand.

 

PTR Vs Mohandas Pai

Mohandas Pai had shared a video on his Twitter timeline on May 21 where he had called Palanivel Thiagarajan as a ‘loose mouth’, ‘arrogant’, ‘self-centred’, ‘abusive’ and ‘egoistic’ for his comments on Jaggi Vasudev.

“Can he shut up and do his job?” Pai wrote on in his tweet.

Palanivel Thiagarajan responded to the tweet calling Mohandas Pai a ‘capitation-thieving’, ‘genetically-bigoted’, ‘biggest-global-beef-merchant’ and a ‘hypocrite’.

Mohandas Pai lashed out at Palanivel Thiagarajan saying that he had a bigoted mind was devoid of dignity.

The spat came to an end with Palanivel Thiagarajan blocking Mohandas Pai.

PTR Vs Goa Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho

A spat between Goa Transport Minister Mauvin Godinho and Palanivel Thiagarajan erupted following the 43rd GST Council meeting on 28th May over the latter’s demand for preferential treatment for larger states.

Minister Godinho stated that  Palanivel Thiagarajan, insulted Goa during the GST meeting by stating that because Goa is a small state, its views should not be given weightage.

“I want to remind the new Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu Mr. Palanivel, refrain from conducting yourself in a manner as a big brother versus small brother or big state versus small state. We all have equal rights. His attitude should be condemned by one and all right-thinking people. He should not target Goa.”, he said.

Post the meeting, Palanivel Thiagarajan had been attacking the Goa Transport Minister over tweets. In a detailed statement, Palanivel Thiagarajan went on to make personal attacks on the Goa Transport Minister.

PTR Vs BJP MLA Vanathi Srinivasan

In what can be called as a behaviour unbefitting for a person holding public office Palanivel Thiagarajan unleashed abuses and made personal attacks on Coimbatore South MLA Vanathi Srinivasan who had called out the former for insulting Goa during the 43rd GST Council meeting.

The BJP MLA had condemned the behaviour of Palanivel Thiagarajan at the GST Council meeting and called it an insult to democracy.

To this, the MIT educated Finance Minister remarked if the BJP woman MLA was a ‘congenital liar’ or a person with ‘low IQ’.

The Finance Minister had later blocked the BJP woman MLA.

Palanivel Thiagarajan put out a derogatory post unbecoming of his position saying “I block you like a normal person closes a window to avoid bad smell”.

Later, Vanathi Srinivasan had put out a dignified response holding up the mirror to the ‘MIT educated’ Finance Minister saying that the latter lacked ‘political maturity’ and ‘social etiquette’.

PTR Vs Journalist Sandhya Ravishankar

Palanivel Thiagarajan along with his troll mob had indulged in denigrating a Ramnath Goenka Award Winning journalist Sandhya Ravishankar who had exposed some of the false rhetoric of the Pollachi Sexual Abuse case.

When the journalist had responded to his tweet that he didn’t even have the basic courtesy to tag the concerned person while talking about them, Palanivel Thiagarajan called her ‘too insignificant/irrelevant’ to tag and engage.

He also called her a ‘scum’ for bringing the untold side of the Pollachi Sexual Abuse case.

While Palanivel Thiagarajan has deleted all these tweets, he probably hasn’t realized that the internet remembers!

PTR Vs Annamalai

He had called BJP Tamil Nadu President Annamalai ‘schizophrenic’ very recently as the latter had put out a tweet in which he took a jibe at him.

When a disability activist pointed out that the problematic usage of the term, he attacked him too.

PTR Vs DMK MP TKS Elangovan

Just a day after DMK Rajya Sabha MP T.K.S. Elangovan expressed concerns over Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan’s public rants on social media, he took to Twitter to hurl abuses at the senior leader of his own party.

In an interview with journalist Sandhya Ravishankar, the DMK MP said that Palanivel Thiagarajan gets provoked easily. He also said that MK Stalin had already advised Palanivel Thiagarajan to not be loose with his words.

Proving the DMK MP’s point, Palanivel Thiagarajan made personal attacks on the senior DMK leader without naming him. He had called him ‘an old fool’ and ‘a person can be bought for 2 kg of shrimp’. He had also attacked Sandhya Ravishankar in that tweet.

 

PTR Vs Common Netizens

Palanivel Thiagarajan abuses not just his political opponents but also common netizens who are critical of the DMK.

Responding to a netizen on the recent ‘baby-shower’ controversy, where the Finance Minister skipped the GST Council meeting at Lucknow to attend a baby shower ceremony organized in his constituency, Palanivel Thiagarajan called the person a ‘dolt’ and a person with ‘unwarranted-privilege-hardened skull’.

He had once again attacked journalists on the matter.

Here are some of his other rants on the matter.

In the above tweet, responding to a woman cadre of the BJP who had asked him if he had really skipped the GST Council meeting to attend baby shower function of his sister-in-law, Palanivel Thiagarajan cyber-bullied her and called her a person ‘whose brain has been spoilt by drinking cow urine’.

In both the tweets above, he keeps making ‘cow urine’ barbs which is usually done by rabid Hindumisic elements to insult those who worship cows.

In another instance, Palanivel Thiagarajan stooped to a new low by uttering words unbefitting of a Minister. He said “Dude… I crap bigger than you.” and went on to call the netizen a ‘scum’, ‘cultist’ and ‘minion’ who had taken a jibe at the collapse of Lehmann Brothers where Palanivel Thiagarajan worked.

A Person Unfit To Be In Public Life

Palanivel Thiagarajan is proving to be an Achille’s heel for the DMK and has become a concern for senior leaders in the party. It was reported in a Tamil magazine that the senior leaders of the party had put in a word with CM Stalin that the party and the government’s image is being tarnished by Palanivel Thiagarajan’s loose remarks. Following this, CM Stalin is said to have sternly warned Palanivel Thiagarajan but it seems to have had no effect as the Minister continues to go about his arrogant behaviour on social media.

One may have studied in the best of institutions and scaled heights in their profession. But, education and experience must make a person humble. ‘Humility’ is a virtue that every person in public life should have. Sadly, Palanivel Thiagarajan’s behaviour shows that he is not just a disgrace to the position he holds now but is also unfit to be in public life.

(Views expressed here are the author’s own)

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