No promises, only Congress sympathy for Karuna

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is also in charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu, called on DMK chief M Karunanidhi on Tuesday to convey party chief Sonia Gandhi's “concern and sympathy” for his daughter Kanimozhi, who had been sent to Tihar jail in the 2G scam case. Shekhar Iyer and Aurangzeb Naqshbandi report.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is also in charge of party affairs in Tamil Nadu, called on DMK chief M Karunanidhi on Tuesday to convey party chief Sonia Gandhi's “concern and sympathy” for his daughter Kanimozhi, who had been sent to Tihar jail in the 2G scam case.

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For the first time since the two parties struck a tie-up in 2004, Karunanidhi did not meet Gandhi on a Delhi trip this time. The DMK's 18 MPs constitute the second largest party in the UPA coalition.

Karunanidhi was to travel back on Monday, but stayed back for a day because of his health conditions, following an emotional meeting with Kanimozhi in Tihar.

After a 30-minute meeting with Karunanidhi, Azad said, “Our leader Sonia Gandhi is concerned because a lady (Kanimozhi) is in jail and the fact is that one cannot do anything.”

Azad said the Congress and the UPA government did not have any role in Kanimozhi's prosecution.

His call on Karunanidhi, which followed home minister P Chidambaram’s visit on Monday, indicated that the Congress did not want to push the alliance partner too far just because it had lost the Tamil Nadu elections.

Also, with Rahul Gandhi launching an aggressive campaign against UP chief minister Mayawati ahead of the state polls next year, the Congress cannot count on the 22 BSP MPs to help it out in the event of a crisis in Parliament.

Meanwhile, as TN chief minister Jayalalithaa again took a dig at the DMK for its alleged support to the LTTE that assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said, “People should refrain from trying to politicise a tragedy of indefinable proportions.”