Contrary to the stand taken by the Tamil Nadu government in the High Court and Supreme Court, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the DMK and its allies did call for a bundh on October 1 on the Sethusamudram issue. He stated that it could not be called off because of the last-minute stay granted by the Supreme Court.

He said, trade unions and other wings of the DMK and its allies went ahead with the preparations, as the Madras High Court did not stay the bundh, but only imposed some conditions. The activists, as well as the general public, had no reason to believe that the apex court would sit on a Sunday (to hear a contempt petition by the AIADMK) and grant an interim stay on the bundh.

He maintained that the written communication about the apex court’s order reached the chief secretary only at 10.30 pm on Sunday. Despite this, state government offices, including the secretariat, functioned on the day and ministers had attended office.

He was silent on the day-long fast undertaken that day by senior  Ministers K Anbazhagan, Arcot N Veerasamy and M K Stalin.

He also took credit for the fact that train and air services were normal.  On the crucial issue of running state transport buses, he claimed, “The services picked up considerably during the course of the day and a few buses were run.”

He refrained from directly commenting on the oral observations of Justice B N Agarwal of the apex court that the flouting of the stay on bundh amounted to constitutional breakdown, which could invite Central intervention. Mr Karunanidhi quoted from the editorials of various dailies and also the opinion of jurists to suggest that it was a typical case of  judicial overreach. 

Karunanidhi’s admission that the DMK and its allies did call for a bundh on October 1, negates the stand by the State Government before the High Court and  Supreme Court that only a general strike had been called and not a bundh. The apex court had banned bundhs in 1998.

The apex court, in the course of the hearing on the contempt petition, had observed, once the Madras High Court was prima facie satisfied that it was a bundh, it should have banned it.