Alagiri ups ante again, gets swift reprisal

The sibling rivalry in the DMK’s first family, the Karunanidhi clan, burst out in the open once again when sulking Madurai strongman MK Alagiri mounted a challenge to the party leadership and received a swift reprisal.

The sibling rivalry in the DMK’s first family, the Karunanidhi clan, burst out in the open once again when sulking Madurai strongman MK Alagiri mounted a challenge to the party leadership and received a swift reprisal.

On Saturday, the DMK headquarters in Chennai dissolved the Madurai district party unit manned by Alagiri’s supporters and packed it with the followers of his younger brother and heir apparent MK Stalin. The action was in response to the Madurai unit pasting posters proclaiming Alagiri as the party’s future CM.

The posters and banners claimed that the DMK’s general council will meet on January 30. Such a meeting can be announced only by the party general secretary in Chennai and, therefore, was seen as an open challenge to the DMK leadership.

A Tamil channel showed clippings of Alagiri’s interview that further angered the party high command, DMK sources said. In the clip, Alagiri declared that he would not accept anyone else as his leader even if he was named by Karunanidhi.

“He (Alagiri) is not able to accept that his father and senior DMK leaders have okayed Stalin as the leader. Stalin has worked for the party even when it was not in power, but Alagiri flexes his muscles only when the party is in power,” explained a former DMK minister.

Not only is the former Union chemicals and fertilisers minister smarting under the near-anointment of his younger brother as the DMK leader after Karunanidhi, he is also cut up over the party’s decision to snap ties with the Congress and walk out of the UPA government.

Stalin’s line, that the DMK should not stick with the Congress in general elections, was approved at the general council meeting last month.