The Hindu : Front Page : I will mediate between Left and Congress: Karunanidhi

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Sunday, Jun 22, 2008
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I will mediate between Left and Congress: Karunanidhi

Special Correspondent

“Do not allow communal forces to gain upper hand”

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi will mediate between the Congress and the Left parties in an effort to resolve their differences over the India-U.S. nuclear deal.

“We have a duty to resolve the differences between the Congress and the Left parties in the interest of the nation,” he said at a function here on Saturday to mark the diamond jubilee of the Indian Union Muslim League.

Mr. Karunanidhi, who is meeting Left leaders in Chennai on Sunday, said he would go to New Delhi soon to find an amicable solution, and expressed the hope that his mission would “help save India.”

Appealing to all secular parties not to allow communal forces to gain the upper hand, he said if such forces came to power, issues such as construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya would crop up again, and the country would not be able to remain peaceful.

PMK issue

No matter which party “won or lost in the elections,” India should prosper. For this, the existing alliance of secular parties should be strengthened, the Chief Minister said.

In an apparent reference to the exit of the Pattali Makkal Katchi from the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Karunanidhi said his party never drove out a party. But one should not expect the DMK, which was heading the front, to give up its self-respect and swallow insults just to keep a party in the alliance.

Assurance

Admitting that the DMK aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party in the past, Mr. Karunanidhi said that before entering into an alliance he had asked that party to give up its communal agenda. Only after the BJP gave an assurance in this regard did the DMK join the National Democratic Alliance, he said.

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