The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Preserve political decency at all costs, says Karunanidhi

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Friday, May 14, 2010
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Preserve political decency at all costs, says Karunanidhi

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: Political decency and Tamil culture should be preserved at all costs, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi said on Thursday, even as he called for better relations between leaders of political parties.

Replying in the Assembly to eulogies heaped on him on his government completing four years in office, Mr. Karunanidhi said that the bonhomie seen among leaders of political parties in New Delhi was absent here. Watching the camaraderie – deduced from images in the media — between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and BJP leader L.K. Advani at a wedding in the Capital, he was happy that such a culture prevailed there.

He recalled that things were different here in the past when he had as opponents, stalwarts such as Kamaraj and M.G. Ramachandran. Despite his differences with MGR (even when he was in the party), it was MGR who had insisted that he (Mr. Karunanidhi) should assume the office of Chief Minister, ahead of Nedunchezhian.

“MGR came home and convinced my wife and my family [that he should assume office]. Even [Murasoli] Maran said that it was Navalar's [Nedunchezhian] turn to lead the party,” Mr. Karunanidhi said and added that despite the fact that they ended up in opposing political camps, they never forgot the friendship they shared.

At the height of the language crisis, he recalled that MGR had stated that he [MGR] and Karunanidhi were like a double-barrel gun that would oppose the imposition of Hindi at all costs.

“When he died, I was at the railway station. People like Jeppair [now head of the Jeppair group of colleges] will know that I was the first to go to Ramavaram to pay my respects,” he said. He shared a similar relationship with Kamaraj. “There was no forum from which I had not harshly criticised [policies of] Kamaraj. But, the moment he heard about my mother's demise, he was at my home, even before we reached back from hospital,” he said.

Recalling another political rivalry, he said that Rajaji and Periyar could never see eye to eye on any issue. “But, when Periyar heard of Rajaji's demise, I was next to him. He was inconsolable with grief and kept sobbing for a long time. Tears flowed down his cheeks onto his white beard. He kept crying,” Mr. Karunanidhi recalled.

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