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Top DMK leaders send out clear message: Our support is for MK Stalin

Top DMK leaders on Tuesday made it clear that the party was solidly behind its Working President M.K. Stalin, whose father and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi died a week ago. This reassurance comes in the wake of expelled party leader MK Alagiri’s statements against the leadership in the DMK and claim that his father’s loyalists were on his side.
An emergency meeting of the Executive Committee was called at the DMK headquarters in Chennai with a single agenda – to pass a resolution condoling the death of DMK President Karunanidhi.
The meeting was chaired by Stalin, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. After the passage of the condolence resolution that praised Karunanidhi and listed his numerous achievements, party leaders including Duraimurugan, T.R. Baalu and others expressed their support to Stalin and urged him to take over the party’s mantle.
“Working President and soon-to-become President, lead us and we will obey your orders,” Duraimurugan thundered.
Addressing the gathering, former Union Minister Baalu said in a quivering voice: “The commander of the army is no more. Nobody has to tell who will be the next commander. Stalin has all the qualities to lead.”
Senior leader Subbulakshmi Jagatheesan pointed that several political rivals believed that DMK won’t last after Anna passed away. “But Kalaignar led us to victory in 1971 and took the party forward. Now people are asking if Stalin can take the party forward. But just like how Kalaignar kept Periyar and Anna’s ideology alive, we will hear news that DMK won over 200 seats in the next election. We have to create this success for Stalin,” she said.
Several District Secretaries of the party also voiced their staunch support to Stalin as the party’s top leader. On his part, Stalin said: “I have lost not only my leader but also my father.”
Opening up on the subject publicly for the first time, he said he had pleaded with Chief Minister K. Palaniswami to allot space at the Marina beach to bury Karunanidhi. “I held the hands of the Chief Minister and pleaded for space. They did not agree.”
After the announcement of Karunanidhi’s death at 6.10 p.m. on August 7, the government issued a statement formally refusing a burial space at Marina. Praising the DMK’s legal team led T. Wilson, Stalin said they approached the Madras High Court late at night and won the case the next day. Stalin said had the case been lost, a situation would have arisen leading to his own burial next to Karunanidhi.
Tuesday’s meeting came a day after expelled DMK leader M.K. Alagiri, Stalin’s elder brother, asserted that “true loyalists” of Karunanidhi were with him and that Stalin was a poor leader. Paying homage to Karunanidhi, Alagiri, expelled from the DMK in 2014 for criticizing party leaders, told reporters that he had poured his anguish about the party to his father and not about his family.
But as expected, the Executive Committee lined up behind Stalin.
The elevation of Stalin as the party President will have to be decided by the DMK’s General Council. The party has not announced a date for a General Council meeting.

Source: The News Minute