Even as the two factions of the ruling AIADMK are fighting it out each other as part of their plan of mutual annihilation, the opposition DMK is gearing up to capture power in Tamil Nadu. In what is seen as a prelude to the formation of a Grand Alliance in the State, the DMK has decided to celebrate with gaiety the 94th birthday of party president M Karunanidhi.
Karunanidhi, who has been confined to the bedroom of his Gopalapuram residence in Chennai due to age-related problems would make his first public appearance of 2017 on June 3 at the YMCA Grounds in the city to receive birthday greetings from his fans and party cadre, according to R S Bharati, MP and organising secretary of the DMK.
Party sources said all prominent national leaders including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, chef ministers of Bihar and Orissa (Nitish Kumar and Naveen Patnaik respectively) would fly down to Chennai to greet Kalaignar (as Karunanidhi is addressed by the cadre).
The year 2017 also marks the 60th anniversary of Karunanidhi as MlA. He was first elected to the Tamil Nadu assembly in 1957 and since then has won all assembly elections he had contested. A galaxy of opposition party leaders from all national, regional and caste parties barring the BJP and Shiv Sena are expected to land in Chennai on June 3 to congratulate and wish good health to the DMK chief who was also a five-time Chief Minister of the State. leaders of the CPI(M), the CPI and other lefts parties too would join the birthday pageant to make it known that they would align with the DMK in future elections.
The DMK has intensified its efforts to cobble up a Rainbow Alliance similar to the one it formed to face the 2004 lok Sabha election in which the party-led front swept all the 39 seats in the State. The only difference this time is that the DMDK (led by Vijayakanth), the PMK and the MDMK may not figure in the front as all these parties have made it known that they would not have any kind of alliance with the DMK.
The last fortnight saw party working president M K Stalin upping the ante against the BJP with allegations of imposition of Hindi over non-Hindi speaking States. He charged that the move by the Ministry of Surface Transport to write the place names in Hindi along the National Highways passing through the State was a proof of the hidden agenda of the BJP-led Government at the Centre. Stalin has been warning the Centre that he would launch an anti-Hindi agitation all over Tamil Nadu similar to the one witnessed by the country in the 1960s.
But H Raja, national secretary of the BJP , called Stalin’s bluff and said that the DMK leader’s advisors had failed to counsel their leader properly.”What the NHAI is doing now with regard to the mile stones in the National Highways is nothing but implementing a policy decision taken by the UPA Government in 2006.The decision to have mile stones painted with names in three languages (Hindi, English and regional languages) was taken by T R Baalu, the then Union Minister of Surface Transport representing the DMK,” said Raja while speaking to journalists at Chennai on Monday.