Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu is an optional post and is second in command to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The first person to hold the office of Deputy Chief Minister was M. K. Stalin, who took office on 29 May 2009 and left on 15 May 2011. The Chief Minister during that time was Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi.
Karunanidhi, the then-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, underwent a spinal chord surgery in 2009, which made him wheel-chair bounded. He was unable to concentrate on many of the departments from his portfolio due to his health condition, so he decided to allocate some departments to his son, M. K. Stalin, who also held the post of Local Administration Minister in his cabinet, thus resulting in the creation of the post of Deputy Chief Minister for the first time in Tamil Nadu. But Karunanidhi held the responsibility of Home Department himself.