Imagine your first day in a new office, but the HR department asks you to come back because you don’t have all your documents.
This is exactly what happened with Vijay-led TVK’s S Keerthana in the state assembly on Monday, as she did not submit her election certificate, a prerequisite for taking oath. Keerthana is the youngest and only female minister in the Vijay government.
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A video of Keerthana returning to her seat without taking oath has gone viral on social media.
When the association’s principal secretary K Srinivasan announced Keerthana’s name on the microphone and invited her to take oath, she walked to the podium, which was directly in front of the Prime Minister’s chair on one side. Also, the MLAs who take the oath will face the professional speaker’s chair.
S Keerthana election certificate issue
As Keerthana approached the podium, Srinivasan raised his hand and asked her to testify, which could be seen in the live coverage of the association’s proceedings.
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However, she was unable to give evidence and it is not known what she replied to Srinivasan.
“It appears that she did not carry her election certificate easily. Since she was unable to submit the certificate, the senior official politely refused to allow her to take the oath. She may take the oath when she submits her election certificate,” news agency PTI quoted an official as saying.
Who is S Keerthana?
Keerthana was sworn in as a minister in the TVK-led government in Tamil Nadu and is among the nine ministers appointed in the newly formed government headed by Chief Minister Joseph C. Vijay. She was sworn in on Sunday morning at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, along with N Anand, Aadhav Arjuna, K Sengottaiyan, P Venkataramanan, R Nirmalkumar, R Rajmohan, T K Prabhu and K G Anurag.
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Keerthana is the newly elected MLA from Sivakasi, often referred to as the ‘fireworks capital of India’. She has postgraduate studies and is the youngest member of the Cabinet at 29 years old. She won the Sivakasi seat by a margin of 11,697 votes in the recently concluded elections.
She is also the only woman in the Vijay government and the first female MLA from Sivakasi, ending nearly seven decades of male dominance in the constituency.
Fluent in several languages, Keerthana has drawn attention for her strong command of Hindi – particularly in Tamil Nadu, where language remains a sensitive and politically important issue.
