M Karunanidhi, the 93-year-old president of the DMK, has been admitted to a private hospital early Thursday morning for optimisation of nutrition and hydration. A release issued by Dr Aravindan Selvaraj, executive director, Kauvery Hospital, Chennai, said that Karunanidhi was stable and was being treated by a team of doctors. “He will be in the hospital for a few days,” the doctor said in the release.
The nonagenarian leader agreed to be hospitalised only after his two sons — MK Alagiri and MK Stalin — told him that there would not be any spat in the public.
A well-known physician in Tamil Nadu expressed his reservations about the health condition of Karunanidhi, the longest serving president of the DMK. “At this age, optimisation of nutrition and hydration may not be that easy. He seems to be in a pretty bad condition,” said the doctor who did not want his name to be quoted. But MK Stalin, Karunanidhi’s younger son and the de facto chief of the party told journalists waiting outside the Kauveri Hospital that his father is fine and would be back home in two days.
Since October, the nonagenarian leader of the DMK has been on bed rest due to drug allergy. No one other than his two wives and children were allowed to meet the DMK patriarch. When K Anbazhagan, DMK general secretary, called on him last Thursday, Karunanidhi is reported to have sobbed uncontrollably.
On Wednesday, at the initiative of Selvi, Karunanidhi’s daughter by Dayalu Ammal, a meeting between Stalin, heir apparent to the party chief and MK Azhagiri, the Madurai based elder son was held at Gopalapuram in Chennai. Sources close to the DMK leadership said Azhagiri has agreed to bury the hatchet and make peace with his younger brother Stalin. It was the long drawn out fight between Azhagiri and Stalin that upset Karunanidhi making him to declare that he would not be hospitalised unless there was a patch up between the siblings.
The details of the truce reached between Azhagiri and Stalin has not yet been percolated from the Gopalapuram residence. “There is an agreement and that’s all I could say as of now,” said a source close to Karunanidhi.
Azhagiri has been maintaining silence since it was known that Karunanidhi was ill. Sources close to Azhagiri said that for Anjanenjan (Tamil for braveheart, as Azhagiri is addressed by his followers) his father and mother are more important than positions in the party. “He will never refuse any requests from Selvi, his favourite sister,” said a close Azhagiri loyalist.