DMK honchos calm down angry Karuna

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Chief minister and DMK president M. Karunanidhi is seething with anger that the Congress leadership had let him down in the hour of crisis in the spectrum scam.

However, his immediate family members and confidants are asking him to keep his cool and not take any precipitate action in retaliation.

Karunanidhi’s elder son and union minister M.K. Alagiri has been asking him to calm down since they could fight the Kanimozhi case legally.

The son also argued that the blow is not all that much near home as his mother Dayalu Ammal has not been indicted by CBI, which has merely named her as a witness. Deputy chief minister M.K. Stalin too was not for creating a ‘political turmoil’.

The octogenarian’s anger had not come down one whit even a day after the news broke that his daughter Kanimozhi’s name is featured in the 2G spectrum chargesheet, sources said. They added that he could not stomach the inclusion of his daughter’s name after several messages were passed through a senior emissary who met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The DMK patriarch has been closeted with senior advocates, ministers, party lieutenants and well-wishers after the news of the chargesheet broke. A humiliated Mr Karunanidhi is said to be insisting that the DMK should pull out its ministers from the Centre since his ‘self-respect’ party cannot continue to hobnob with the ‘unhelpful’ Congress, party insiders say.

“Thalaivar has taken several crucial decisions in anger in the past but this time it is not easy to take such an extreme step. We have to tread cautiously keeping in mind long-term consequences,” remarked a senior minister recalling the party’s stand during Mr Raja’s arrest that they will face it in court.

The high-level committee meeting of the DMK on Wednesday would only vent the party’s anger while reiterating the party’s stand that the Rs214 crore Kalaignar TV transaction was only a loan and Kanimozhi would prove her innocence, sources said.