Breaking silence on his rivalry with his older brother M K Alagiri, M K Stalin on Wednesday said he would not take Alagiri’s prediction of his early death seriously. “I don’t want to take seriously what Alagiri said about me. Neither do I want to make it a big issue. All those who are born have to die one day”, he said.

Sibling rivalry within the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) took a serious turn on Tuesday when party chief M Karunanidhi revealed that Alagiri abused his younger son Stalin and predicted his death in a few months.

Alagiri, the suspended DMK leader and former Union minister, on the other hand had denied the charges his father had levelled against him.

Appeal to supporters

“That my father has made his (Alagiri's) utterings public itself is enough,” Stalin said and appealed to his supporters not to flout party principles by blowing the issue out of proportion through acts of burning of effigies.

Stating that his party president would have been hurt in the same way even if he had spoken ill about Alagiri, Stalin said: “That’s why he said we are party workers rather than merely his sons.”

At a time when the party high command was taking timely and proper action against those flouting DMK principles, the acts of burning  effigies impulsively by some party workers would affect discipline in the party, he said.

Letter to PM

Meanwhile,  Karunanidhi has written to the prime minister seeking additional security for Stalin.

Party sources, which declined to give the contents of the letter, said the DMK chief had recently written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking increased protection, “after the Alagiri incident,” in an apparent reference to escalation of tension in DMK’s first family.