Muthuvel Karunanidhi, India’s oldest politician is turning 94 on Saturday. Chennai is all spruced up to celebrate his birthday as well as the 60th anniversary of Dr Kalaignar (as he wants everybody to address him) becoming a member of Tamil Nadu legislative Assembly. He got elected to the House for the first time in 1957 and since then has won all elections he had contested. In 1969, this school drop-out was elected as the president of the DMK and since then he has been occupying that post uninterrupted.
Karunanidhi was active till 2016 and the DMK had projected him as the Chief Ministerial candidate in the last Assembly elections. Had the DMK won the majority of the seats, Karunanidhi, then 93, would have become the oldest Chief Minister in the country. Though bed ridden since October 2016, this master strategist is engaged in a battle with time and age to break another world record. He will be completing 50 years as president of the DMK in 2019 if he wins the bout against ill health and would break the record of Fidel Castro, who was the general secretary of the Cuban Communist Party from 1961 to 2011.
For the first time in his life, Karunandhi is staying indoors on his birthday due to health reasons while his Dravidian followers who swear by atheism would offer special poojas in temples across Tamil Nadu for his longer life and health! The who’s who of national politics (except leaders from the BJP and Shiv Sena) would be flying down to greet the birthday boy. The DMK has planned a grand public meeting at Chennai on Saturday evening and has instructed all cadre of the party to assemble in large numbers to show the outside world that Dr Kalaignar is in full control of the party and his senses.