Amit Shah all set to give DMK meet a miss

CHENNAI : The political row over condolence meeting for late Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, came to an end on Monday with BJP officially making it clear that national president Amit Shah would not make it to the meeting, but has deputed two top leaders, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and BJP national general secretary P Muralidhar Rao.Informing this, BJP State president Tamilisai Soundararajan also announced that the party would be organising a condolence meeting for former Prime Minister AB Vajpayee in Chennai on August 28, three days ahead of the condolence meeting for Karunanidhi. Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi will be attending it.

Perhaps, participation of leaders of both parties in the condolence meetings for their iconic leaders will create an impression that there is ‘no politics’ in the meetings and will set at rest all speculations, doing the rounds for the past few days, about both parties coming together for a future alliance.

The condolence meeting for Vajpayee will be addressed by Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, Tamil Nadu Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar, TNCC president S Thirunavukkarasar, PMK president GK Mani, TMC leader BS Gnanadesikan, VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan, MDMK deputy general secretary CE Mallai Sathya and Puthiya Thamizhagam leader K Krishnasamy. Incidentally, MDMK general secretary Vaiko, who paid rich encomiums on Vajpayee, chose to stay away.

Initially, when former union minister TR Baalu and Kanimozhi personally invited Amit Shah, he had reportedly agreed to participate in the condolence meeting for Karunanidhi. But after speculations started doing the rounds about this being a forerunner to future alliance, Subramanian Swamy expressed happiness over Amit Shah deciding not to attend it.

This gave further momentum to the issue. While State BJP leaders pleaded ignorance about Shah’s participation, top leaders at the national level kept quiet for a couple of days.  Now, the participation of the second-rung leaders from the BJP and DMK in each other’s event has put an end to the speculations.