The DMK meeting is currently underway in Chennai
Amid power tussle between DMK working president MK Stalin and brother Alagiri, a key meeting of the party’s executive council took place in Chennai Tuesday. While the party leaders maintain that the meeting was convened to condole DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s death, speculation is rife that a decision may have been taken about calling the party’s general council for putting its seal of approval on elevating Stalin to the post of party chief.
Addressing the party workers, DMK working president MK Stalin got emotional while remembering party chief and his father Karunanidhi. “Party has lost our leader but I have lost the leader as well as my father. All of us should now work together to take the party to new heights,” he said.
Follow LIVE UPDATES of DMK meet in Tamil
Stalin also slammed the AIADMK establishment for not allowing a Marina burial to Karunanidhi. “When Kalaignar was in his last stage I held CM’s hands and pleaded to fulfil his (Karunanidhi) last wish to be buried in Marina Beach but govt didn’t agree,” he said. Giving the lawyers the credit for getting a nod from Madras HC for the burial, Stalin added, “If this wouldn’t have happened then surely I would have been the person to be buried along with our leader.”
The party recalled Karunanidhi’s contribution towards social justice, industrialisation, upholding regional autonomy and his role in various national events. The leaders observed a two-minute silence as a mark of respect to the departed soul.
The meeting comes a day after Karunanidhi’s elder son M K Alagiri claimed that all loyal party workers are with him. Speaking to reporters after visiting his father’s burial site, Alagiri on Monday said: “I shared my concerns with him (Karunanidhi). My leader’s true loyalists are with me. All are supporting me. Time will prove it.” He was accompanied by his son, Dayanidhi Alagiri, and daughter, Kayalvizhi.
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Alaigiri who was expelled from the party by Karunanidhi in 2014 for “anti-party activities” also denied any association with DMK or its executive meeting. “I am not part of the party,” he said. “I don’t know,” was his terse reply to a question about whether he would be back in the party again.
Alagiri and Stalin have been at loggerheads for years over who will inherit Karunanidhi’s legacy. Before his expulsion, Alagiri had famously questioned if the DMK was a “mutt” where the pontiff could anoint his successor.
A source close to Stalin said he would never accommodate Alagiri in the party. “If Alagiri is taken back, both he and his son, Dayanidhi Alagiri, will be a perennial problem. Stalin will never do that,” said the source.