CHENNAI: The Democratic Progressive Alliance will launch a campaign from January 18 to oust the "anti-people" and "anti-democratic" Jayalalithaa Government.

Asked if it would mark the beginning of the DPA's preparations for the Assembly elections, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M.Karunanidhi said the poll work began on Monday.

Local leaders of the parties comprising the alliance will organise meetings at district and taluk levels and hold cycle rallies and street corner gatherings to explain to people the manner in which the ruling party had "misused" its powers. The arrest of DMK councillor K.Dhanasekaran will be the focus of the campaign.

This was decided at an hour-long meet of the leaders of the DPA at the DMK headquarters here.

Addressing reporters later, Mr. Karunanidhi said the DPA partners at the district level would discuss and carry out the campaign. The only slogan would be to oust the "anti-people" Government.

Mr. Karunanidhi said he had held preliminary discussions with the alliance partners on seat sharing. Asked if the details would be announced at the DMK's State conference in March, he said the announcement would be made if the talks were completed. If the Election Commission announced the dates for the elections, the manifesto would be released at the meeting.

`No change in stand'

On the demand of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Pattali Makkal Katchi that the Centre should not provide military help to Sri Lanka, Mr. Karunanidhi said this was the view of those parties.

"They [the parties] have also said that they have spoken to the Prime Minister on the issue. It does not appear that the Prime Minister is against this view," he said.

The DMK's stand was that Tamils in Sri Lanka should not suffer. There was no change in this view, he said.

On the common entrance test for admission to professional courses, Mr. Karunanidhi said his party was of the opinion that there should be no entrance tests.

Apart from Mr. Karunanidhi, DPA leaders G.K. Vasan (Congress), S. Ramadoss (PMK), N. Varadarajan (CPI-M), D. Pandian (CPI), Vaiko (MDMK) and K.M. Khader Mohideen (IUML) attended the meeting.

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