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Tamil Nadu : Three killed in Karunanidhi family feud

	May 14, 2007

Three person were killed in Madurai on May 9 when a simmering feud within DMK President and Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s family over succession came to the boil. The violence, which saw the offices of a newspaper being put on fire, erupted following findings of an opinion poll published in a newspaper that the DMK supremo’s second son M.K. Stalin was most suited to succeed his father as political heir. Supporters of M.K. Azhagiri, the eldest son, ransacked the Dinakaran’s Madurai office and attacked it with patrol bombs. Three employees of the newspaper died of suffocation after they were trapped in a room which caught fire.



Dinakaran is owned by Karunanidhi’s grand nephew, Kalanidhi Maran, brother of Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran.



Karunanidhi condemned the violence and ordered a CBI probe into the incident.



The survey conducted among party cadres, done by leading international agency, AC Nielsen for the daily, found Stalin to be the most preferred successor to Karunanidhi. While the results showed Stalin getting 70 per cent of the popular support among cadre, it gave a mere 2 per cent to Azhagiri, who works out of Madurai. Supporters of Azhagiri burnt copies of Dinakaran at several places in Madurai and other southern towns of the State as also the effigy of Union IT and Telecom Minister, Dayanidhi Maran.





Family rift widens



The rift in the family appears to be widening with Union Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran staying away from the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Karunanidhi’s legislative career in Chennai on May 11.



Dayanidhi skipped two functions at the State Assembly in the morning and the evening public meeting that had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, along with former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral among the guests of honour.







Dayanidhi’s conspicuous absence became the topic of discussion in the evening meeting, given that he was DMK’s pointsman in Delhi. He was unavailable for comment.



In another related development, Sun News, the Tamil news channel of the Sun TV network, did not telecast the golden jubilee celebrations live.



Interestingly, Raj TV, another Tamil TV channel, became the official telecaster for the DMK by relaying both the morning and evening programmes live.



Karunanidhi’s reply in the Assembly on Thursday apparently upset the Marans because he faulted only the Dinakaran for conducting the opinion poll and not Azhagiri for his violent reaction.



The Chief Minister pointed out that the PMK cadres too had burnt copies of the Dinakaran, two days ago after Dayanidhi was voted as the best Central Minister while PMK Anubumani’s Ramadoss was relegated.



It remains to be seen if the rift will have any impact on Dayanidhi’s position in the Union Cabinet.



At the function marking the golden jubilee celebrations, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi heaped praises on him.



The Prime Minister described Karunanidhi as a “patriot and a nation builder” and expressed his “indebtedness for helping to form the UPA Government at the Centre.”



UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi described Karunanidhi as a “powerful writer and a fiery orator” and “a passionate supporter of our policies and a strong pillar of support for the UPA Government.



The felicitation function in the Island Ground in Chennai, looked like a mega political event with several Union Ministers - Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Pawar, P. Chidambaram and Ram Vilas Paswan, former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and general secretaries of CPI(M) and CPI, Prakash karat and A.B. Bardhan, respectively being present.



The two-day golden jubilee celebrations began with the convening of a special session of the State Assembly in which Governor Surjit Singh Barnala and leaders of various legislature parties offered felicitations to the octogenarian leader. A smiling Barnala draped Karunanidhi with a silk shawl as is the custom in Tamil Nadu to greet important persons.



Describing Karunanidhi, Barnala praised his “eloquence, poetic talent, and political sagacity as well as his administrative acumen.”



Karunanidhi has never lost an election and won all the 11 elections he has contested since 1957.