DMK leadership to stay within family, hints MK
Hardening his stand against critics on the issue of succession, the 89-year-old DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi on Monday indicated that the leadership would remain within the party’s first family.
Inaugurating the year-long celebrations on the Dravidian Movement (1912-2012) here on Monday evening, Karunanidhi asserted that only the DMK had been in the vanguard of ensuring social justice for the Backward Classes, Dalits and minorities, as envisioned by its founders late Dr T M Nair, P T T Chettiyar and Natesa Mudaliar and later carried forward by Periyar and Annadurai in the movement’s post-Justice Party second phase.
Seeking to go down the memory lane on how he led the anti-Hindi struggle at the tender age of 13 years and fought for the DMK’s ideals, Karunanidhi said, youth “should come forward” to carry on the movement’s good work.
In the same breath the DMK chief said: “It is true that people of my family, my descendants are very much in politics today.” But, he said amid thundering applause that “it is to ensure that even if one Karunanidhi goes, several Karunanidhis will rise to the occasion to fight, to protect the interests of the DMK, the Tamils and of Dravidians as a whole.”
With his younger son M K Stalin on the dais, Karunanidhi’s indication was clear enough. Mincing no words, though, he did not name anybody in particular. However, he began his speech, addressing Stalin reverentially, as “Thalapathi (commander), Honourable Thiru M K Stalin.”
Dwelling at some length on the “historical injustice” done to the ‘Sudras’ who fell outside the ‘Varna’ system for ages, Karunanidhi said the ‘Dravidian Movement’ had its roots in such social discrimination, which took shape as ‘Non-Brahmin Movement’ in erstwhile Madras Presidency.
Significantly, 90-year-old DMK general ecretary Prof K Anbazhagan, who greeted Stalin on the dais with a green shawl, openly declared that the party was “identifying him” (Stalin) to be “our successor”.
