DMK will recapture power, says Karunanidhi

Coimbatore, July 23 (IANS) The DMK cannot be destroyed and it will capture power again in the state, party president and former Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi said here Saturday.

Addressing the party's executive council meeting here, he said the meeting had been called at a crucial time when the state government was taking vindictive action against its leaders and cadres.

Many speakers voiced their opposition to continuing an alliance with the Congress but senior leader Durai Murugan said speakers were turning emotional on the subject, a party source said.

Murugan said alliance decisions were strategic ones and not emotional issues. He said the party supremo (Karunanidhi) could take strategic decisions.

The DMK called the party's executive and general council meetings here - around 500 km from Chennai - after it lost the assembly elections held in April this year.
Citing the electoral debacle that the DMK faced immediately after the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, he said the party had bounced back again.

Karunanidhi said every member of the party had to share the blame for the defeat.

A party leader told IANS that the executive council deliberated on what he called vindictive cases foisted by the state government on partymen.

It is learnt speakers at the council held the alliance partners responsible for the electoral defeat.

The rivalry between Karunanidhi's sons - M.K. Alagiri and M.K. Stalin - also surfaced at the executive council with supports of Stalin wanting their leader to be elevated, which proposal Alagiri's supporters opposed.

An executive council member said that Stalin should tour the state more often and Karunanidhi could be based at the party headquarters looking after party affairs.

To this, Karunanidhi quipped whether the member was trying to create a rift between him and Stalin, and the audience burst into laughter.

It was learnt that the discussion was put to rest by a senior leader saying that it was not the right time to talk about leadership changes.