| O. Paneerselvam | |
|---|---|
 Ex-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu |
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| Occupation | Ex-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu |
O. Paneerselvam (Tamil: ஒ. பன்னீர்செல்வம் ) (born 1951) is a former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Prior to his entry to politics, he owned a tea shop which he still owns. He was sworn in as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in September 2001 after the appointment of then Chief Minister and AIADMK party chief J. Jayalalithaa was quashed[1] by the Supreme Court of India. In March 2002, he resigned as Chief Minister and J. Jayalalithaa was sworn in after the Supreme Court overturned her conviction and sentence and she won a by-election from Andipatti assembly constituency.
After his resignation he became the Public Works Department minister in the Jayalalithaa government. O. Paneerselvam was the leader of the AIADMK legislative party and the Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly for about two weeks, after the party lost the assembly elections in May 2006. After all the AIADMK legislators were suspended by the speaker of the house, Jayalalithaa who had decided not to attend the Legislative Assembly decided to return and replaced O. Paneerselvam as the Leader of the Opposition. [1] He has been twice elected to the Tamil Nadu assembly from Periyakulam constituency. His confidants affectionately call him with his initials as 'OP'. He is the only CM after Kamaraj and Bakthavatsalam era who has not faced any corruption charges and was commended as Mr. Clean[weasel words] even when he was a Minister even by his political opponents and moreover, he is only CM who has a college degree education (B.A) after C.N. Annadurai.
References
- ^ On September 21, 2001, a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India ruled in a unanimous verdict that "a person who is convicted for a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of not less than two years cannot be appointed the Chief Minister of a State under Article 164 (1) read with (4) and cannot continue to function as such". Thereby, the bench decided that "in the appointment of Ms. Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister there has been a clear infringement of a Constitutional provision and that a writ of quo warranto must issue". In effect her appointment as Chief Minister was declared null and invalid with retrospective effect. Therefore, technically, she was not the Chief Minister in the period between May 14, 2001 and September 21, 2001 (The Hindu — SC unseats Jayalalithaa as CM, Full text of the judgment from official Supreme Court site).
| Preceded by J. Jayalalithaa |
Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu | Succeeded by J. Jayalalithaa |
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