Chennai: Various national leaders will inaugurate a memorial for former chief minister M Karunandhi at his birthplace Thiruvarur on June 3 when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) will launch its year-long celebrations of his birth centenary, party president and chief minister M K Stalin said on Wednesday during the district secretaries’ meeting held in Chennai.
This comes close on the heels of the gathering of opposition leaders during Stalin’s birthday on March 1 who vowed to forge a united opposition to take on the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejasvi Yadav had participated in the event. Stalin had said then that talks of a Third Front are pointless and all parties must shed their egos to come together to fight the BJP.
But the event on June 3 may not necessarily be a gathering of non-BJP leaders except for projecting Stalin as an important non-BJP chief minister in the national political scene. “We will be inviting party leaders across India,” DMK’s organising secretary R S Bharathi told HT. “But, we have yet to decide who we will be inviting. It will be a gala event like one of our manadu.”
A manadu is DMK’s mega party conference and the last such was held in Trichy district on March 9 in 2021 ahead of the May assembly elections that year. It was the first one chaired by Stalin, then the leader of opposition, after his father Karunanidhi died in August 2018. At the mega party conference Stalin unveiled his 10-year-vision for Tamil Nadu which included the poll promise of a monthly cash handout of ₹1,000 for women heads of household which was announced in the 2023-’24 budget on Monday.
{{/usCountry}}A manadu is DMK’s mega party conference and the last such was held in Trichy district on March 9 in 2021 ahead of the May assembly elections that year. It was the first one chaired by Stalin, then the leader of opposition, after his father Karunanidhi died in August 2018. At the mega party conference Stalin unveiled his 10-year-vision for Tamil Nadu which included the poll promise of a monthly cash handout of ₹1,000 for women heads of household which was announced in the 2023-’24 budget on Monday.
{{/usCountry}}A “Kalaignar Kottam” (built in memory of a person), a museum and a marriage hall will be inaugurated by “national leaders” at Tiruvarur, according to the resolution passed by the meeting. Leaders of the DMK-led Secular Progressive Alliance will speak during the day while the “national leaders” will speak in the evening, it added.
“Our leader Kalaignar has been a dominant player in national politics. He has had a say in the posting of Presidents and Prime Ministers which is why we have decided to invite all-India party leaders,” Bharathi said. “Some of the present leaders’ parents had a comfortable relationship with him.”
The meeting passed a resolution to celebrate the birth centenary of Karunanidhi in a grand fashion all through the year. Stalin also launched a massive enrolment drive for the DMK to add one-crore new members to the party in the next few months ending June 3. DMK has an existing strength of 10 million members.
Stalin also said that the celebrations were coming during a time when the entire nation was watching Tamil Nadu’s welfare measures. The meeting’s resolution congratulated those who worked for the landslide victory of their alliance Congress’ candidate EVKS Elangovan in the Erode east by-poll held in February.