Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on the ailing Muthuval Karunanidhi, the 95-year-old president of the DMK who is also the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu at the latter’s Gopalapuram residence in Chennai on Monday.
The Prime Minister who was in Chennai to participate in the 75th anniversary of Tamil daily Dina Thanthi and a marriage in the family of an IAS officer in the PMO drove down to Karunanidhi’s residence and enquired about his health.
Karunanidhi is not in the best of health and has been confined to his house since October 2016. Prime Minister was welcomed by M K Stalin, working president of the DMK and the second son of Karunanidhi by his second wife Dayalu Ammal.
Members of the Karunanidhi clan except elder son M K Azhagiri were present during the Prime Minister’s visit to the residence. Prime Minister Modi also called on the ailing Dayalu Ammal, who also stays at the Gopalapuram residence. Rajathi Ammal, Karunanidhi’s third wife played the role of the hostess and was seem whispering to the patriarch about the presence of the Prime Minister in his room.
The video released later showed Prime Minister Modi holding the hand of Karunanidhi and speaking to him while there was no expression on the face of the latter.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit, union Defence Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, and Tamil Nadu BJP chief Tamilissai Sounderarajan accompanied the Prime Minister to Karunanidhi’s house.
“Prime Minister Modi enquired about Karunanidhi’s health and asked him whether he would like to come over to New Delhi to stay with him. Karunanidhi presented the Prime Minister a set of books he authored on various topics,” said Sounderarajan.
TKS Elangovan, the DMK spokesman, said there was nothing unusual in Prime Minister Modi calling on Karunanidhi. Both of them know each otjer well and have worked together when they were the chief ministers of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu,” said Elangovan.
The Prime Minister spent nearly 15 minutes with Karunanidhi. Within minutes of the Prime Minister leaving the residence of Karunanidhi, the DMK issued a directive to the party cadre to wear black badges on the first anniversary of the demonetisation which is being observed as a Black Day by the combined opposition.
According to sources in the DMK, this has been done to clear the doubts in the mind of the party cadre as well as that of the AIADMK cadre that there would not be any kind of ties with the BJP.