DMK’s rout in polls: Stalin offers to quit party posts

Chennai: Jolted by his party’s rout at the hands of arch rival AIADMK in the April 24 Lok Sabha polls, DMK Treasurer and party chief M Karunanidhi’s son M K Stalin on Sunday offered to resign from all party posts. Stalin, who led the party’s poll race by handpicking the candidates for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, offered to quit owning moral responsibility for the debacle, party sources said.
DMK failed to win a single seat out of the 34 it contested in Tamil Nadu besides the Puducherry segment. Its allies who contested the rest of the seats also drew a blank. However, Karunanidhi was yet to take a call on the matter and was in a huddle with senior leaders of the party, the sources added. Stailn’s elder brother M K Alagiri, expelled recently for alleged indiscipline, had reportedly demanded his younger sibling’s resignation holding him responsible for the poll debacle.
DMK’s poll preparations and turf war with AIADMK revolved around Stalin, who took complete control in the wake of the expulsion of his elder brother, Madurai-based Alagiri, even as the former Deputy Chief Minister himself had embarked on a whirlwind campaign to ensure his party candidates’ victory. Stalin, also the chief of the DMK youth wing, has been involved in a sibling war with Alagiri on the issue of who will be the heir apparent to Karunanidhi although the 89 year-old patriarch had hinted preferring his younger son.
In Madurai, Alagiri seemed not to attach much importance to Stalin’s offer to resign, dubbing it as a ‘drama’. “I don’t watch or hear unnecessary news. I came to know only from you about his (Stalin’s} offer to resign,” he told reporters when sought for his response on the matter. “All this is a drama. He will pretend to give resignation letter. Someone will prevent him. Then the DMK president will say he will not accept the resignation. You wait and see how long this drama is enacted,” he said. (PTI)