Muthuvel Karunanidhi (92) became the longest serving president of a political party in India on Friday with the DMK general council “unanimously” re-electing him as the party chief for the 11th time. Karunanidhi, addressed as Dr Kalaignar by party cadres, has been occupying the presidency of the party since 1969 when the DMK founder CN Annadurai passed away.
The re-election of Karunanidhi was announced by Sarguna Pandian, one of the family loyalists, amid bursting of crackers and clapping by thousands of DMK leaders who had assembled at the party headquarters since early morning. K Anbazhagan (94) was re-elected as the general secretary of the DMK while MK Stalin (62) Karunanidhi’s younger son was re-elected as party treasurer. There were reports that Stalin was annoyed with his father for not elevating him to the post of general secretary as the incumbent Anbazhagan was not willing to give way to the “youngster”.
The Karunanidhi family established its complete command over the party set-up with the elevation of the 2G scam-tainted K Kanimozhi (Karunanidhi’s daughter by third wife Rajathi Ammal) as the secretary of the women’s wing of the DMK. Interestingly, it was Karunanidhi who announced the name of Kanimozhi, a self-styled Tamil poetess, as the new secretary of the women’s wing.
Family loyalists like K Duraimurugan, Tiruchy Shiva and A Raja too were given their due shares. Duraimurugan, who has been sulking for denying his son a seat in the lok Sabha election has been promoted to the post of principal secretary from his present title of deputy general secretary. Raja, the prime accused in the 2G scam, and Shiva were re-elected as the propaganda secretaries.
The entire party apparatus has been reportedly “hijacked” by Stalin who succeeded in inducting persons of his choice as the district secretaries to ensure his election to the top post in the eventuality of Karunanidhi announces his retirement midway, though it looks remote. MK Alagiri, the expelled south zone secretary of the DMK, continues to be in the wilderness though efforts are on by family insiders for a patch-up between him and Karunanidhi.
Another highlight of DMK’s general council meet was the rather harsh tone of Karunanidhi against the BJP something he refrained doing so far although he had criticised it on issues like Hindutva. “The BJP, which has assumed power at the Centre, is well-versed in deceptive tricks more than AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa,” he said, adding, “We should not get deceived by them.”
The DMK chief’s attack comes against the backdrop of the recent defection of former Union Minister D Napoleon, a loyalist of expelled leader MK Alagiri, to the BJP. Stating that the BJP had underrated his party, Karunanidhi said, “They thought that they could triumph us and devised plans which became well-known and realised that it was not possible.” Also, against the background of BJP’s new found assertiveness in Tamil Nadu to “capture power”, Karunanidhi, in a lighter vein, said “those who had come from somewhere with huge advertisement backing feel that the DMK could be trounced.”