Senthil Balaji: From over 450 days in prison to Tamil Nadu Cabinet again

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday in which the name of V. Senthil Balaji was again included.

The swearing-in will take place at 3.30 pm on Sunday at the Rajbhavan.

V. Senthil Balaji was born on October 21, 1975, in Rameswarapatti in the Karur district of Tamil Nadu and comes from an agricultural background.

He entered politics at the age of 21, had been active since the early 2000s, and became a local body member. Senthil Balaji was elected from the Karur assembly constituency as an MLA in the 2006 Assembly polls and again in 2011.

Balaji was the Tamil Nadu Minister of Transport from 2011- 2015 in the AIADMK government. He was elected as an MLA again from Aruvarakurichi constituency in 2016.

After the split in AIADMK, he left the party and joined the DMK on 14 December 2018 and became the DMK district secretary. He contested by-polls from Aruvakurichi in 2019 and later in the 2021 Assembly elections and became a minister for Electricity and Excise in the Stalin-led cabinet.

On June 14, 2023, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Senthil Balaji’s house and other places in Chennai, Karur and Coimbatore and interrogated him about a job for a cash scam while he served as the Transport Minister in the AIADMK-led government.

After several hours of interrogation, Balaji was arrested and remanded to judicial custody.

Balaji complained of chest pain and a medical investigation found that he had three blocks in his coronary artery. Subsequently, he was subjected to an angioplasty at a private hospital. He continued in the private hospital for a few more days and was later shifted back to the Puzhal Central Prison.

Even as the opposition demanded the immediate removal of Balaji from the ministry, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin did not succumb to the pressure.

However, there was immense demand for his resignation and Senthil Balaji tendered his resignation on February 12, 2024, eight months after his arrest ahead of his bail plea hearing in the Madras High Court.

After the Supreme Court granted him bail, Balaji walked out of Puzhal Central Prison and is now being inducted again in the Stalin-led cabinet.

–IANS