Karunanidhi plays down PMO's gesture to Jayalalithaa; says it is a protocol

Seeking to downplay the PMO's gesture of sending an SPG vehicle for Jayalalithaa, DMK president M Karunanidhi today said it was only "a security protocol" followed for any chief minister.

In his first comments on the keenly watched two-day Delhi visit of Jayalalithaa that concluded yesterday, Karunanidhi said the security protocol was in vogue for many years.

In a special gesture, the PMO had yesterday sent a vehicle to ferry Jayalalithaa from the Tamil Nadu House in Delhi for her meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"The chief minister of any state visiting prime minister is taken to his office in a vehicle sent by the PMO. This is done keeping in mind the security measures and has been in vogue for the last many years. A section of media has carried reports as if the prime minister himself sent the vehicle," he wrote in the party mouthpiece Murasoli.

Jayalalithaa's visit to Delhi, the first after her landslide win in the April 13 assembly elections, was keenly watched as it came amid growing strains in the seven-year ties between the ruling Congress at the Centre and the DMK in the past few months, over the 2G spectrum allocation scam and the poll debacle.

Karunanidhi also criticised the AIADMK government for its stand on the uniform system of education and its legal battles, saying it only showed the government did not care about students.