A new cold war over selection of candidates for the upcoming Assembly election has broken out in the DMK between party chief M Karunanidhi and his son MK Stalin, who is the treasurer of the party.
The process of selecting DMK candidates began on Monday at the party headquarters in Chennai with Karunanidhi, Stalin and party general secretary K Anbazhagan constituting the panel to interview the applicants.
Anbazhagan (94) could be the oldest active politician in the country. Though not in the best of health, he made it to the party headquarters to interview the young DMK activists and to offer a helping hand to Karunanidhi. The prospective candidates were asked to explain the ground realities in the Assembly constituencies they have chosen. To make them comfortable and feel free, no other persons including the district secretaries were allowed during the interviews.
It is reported that one of the prospective candidates gave vent to her feelings and said how she was being harassed by the all powerful secretary of one of the southern districts. Since the district secretary happened to be a close aide of Stalin, the latter tried to cut short the interview which upset Karunanidhi who asked the lady to go ahead and explain everything.
Since there were many candidates to be interviewed, Stalin wanted the process to continue beyond 9 pm to which Karunanidhi disagreed. Tuesday saw Stalin staying away from the interview though no formal reason was given for his absence. Some of the candidates who attended the interview said that Thalapathi (Tamil for commander, as stalin is addressed by the cadre) was not well. But by Wednesday everything was fine and Styalin was back in the panel interviewing the aspirants.
“It could be a diplomatic illness,” said one of the party insiders when asked about the frets and fumes coming out of the DMK headquarters. Stalin is also upset that Karunanidhi is not yielding place to him in spite of the fact that all opinion polls found him ahead of the 93 year old chief of the party as the most preferred chief ministerial candidate from the DMK.
The DMK is already plagued by the dissension of MK Alagiri, Karunanidhi’s Madurai-based elder son. The party is yet to rope in alliance partners other than the Congress. Karunanidhi’s pleas to DMDK leader Vijayakanth is yet to evoke any response while there are reports that the TMC led by G K Vasan may cast its lots with the AIADMK.