S Keerthana walking for oath taking as CM Vijay sits near the podium.
That is what exactly happened with Vijay-led TVK’s S Keerthana at the State Assembly on Monday as she did not present her Certificate of Election, which is a prerequisite for taking oath. Keerthana is the youngest and the only woman minister in Vijay’s cabinet.
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A video of Keerthana returning to her seat without taking oath has been making rounds on social media.
As the Assembly principal secretary K Srinivasan announced Keerthana’s name on the microphone and invited her to take oath, she walked to the podium, which was right in front of the chair of the chief minister from one side. Also, MLAs who take oath would face the chair of the pro tem speaker.
S Keerthana’s election certificate issue
While Keerthana neared the podium, Srinivasan raised his hand and asked her the certificate, which could be seen in the live coverage of the Assembly proceedings.
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However, she could not produce the certificate and what she replied to Srinivasan was not known.
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 inducted into the newly formed cabinet under chief minister Joseph C Vijay. She took oath on Sunday morning at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, alongside N Anand, Aadhav Arjuna, KA Sengottaiyan, P Venkataramanan, R Nirmalkumar, Rajmohan, TK Prabhu and KG Anuraj.
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Keerthana is the newly elected MLA from Sivakasi, often referred to as the ‘Fireworks Capital of India’. A postgraduate, she is the youngest member of the cabinet at 29. She won the Sivakasi seat by a margin of 11,697 votes in the recently concluded elections.
She is also the only woman in Vijay’s cabinet and the first female MLA from Sivakasi, ending nearly seven decades of male dominance in the constituency.
Fluent in multiple languages, Keerthana has drawn attention for her strong command of Hindi—particularly notable in Tamil Nadu, where language remains a sensitive and politically significant issue.
