DMK general council to hold 2-day meet in Coimbatore in July

DMK's general council, the top policy-making body, would be meeting for two days in Coimbatore from July 23 to take stock of the political situation arising out of recent assembly polls in which the party was trounced by its archrival AIADMK.

The meeting is also likely to review its ties with Congress.

DMK men were angry over the arrest of party MP and its patriarch M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and had been demanding a review of ties with Congress.

This would be the first meeting of the general council after DMK's rout in the polls and the arrest of Kanimozhi in connection with the 2G spectrum scam.

Though Karunanidhi had said on his birthday on June 3 that a "bad friendship would end up in trouble", he later clarified that DMK's ties with Congress were "good." However, he hastened to say that only the general council could decide on major issues like ties with other parties including Congress.

This would be DMK's first major meeting in the last one year in the western parts of the state, the last being the World Classical Tamil Meet held in June 2010. In the assembly polls, the party failed to win a single seat in the western belt of Coimbatore, Erode, Tiruppur and Nilgiris districts.

The DMK ministers from the region had to eat humble pie in the April 13 state assembly elections.