Indicating an unease in ties between his party and the Congress, the Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK president on Sunday night skipped a dinner hosted for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by governor SS Barnala in Chennai.
Indicating an unease in ties between his party and the Congress, Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK President M Karunanidhi on Sunday night skipped a dinner hosted for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by governor SS Barnala in Chennai.
The chief minister's office said that Karunanidhi could not attend the dinner at the Raj Bhavan owing to prior commitment. Karunanidhi, a key ally of UPA, was busy attending a book release function by his close friend and renowned poet Vairamuthu.
However, sources close to the chief minister said Karunanidhi would meet the prime minister at 8:30am on Monday at the Raj Bhavan.
During the meeting, Karunanidhi is expected to request the prime minister to release more funds for relief works in the districts which faced the monsoon fury last month.
There have been signs of unease in ties between the DMK and Congress over the alleged scam in 2G spectrum allocation, on which Parliament was stalled during the winter session.
Former telecom minister A Raja, a DMK representative, was forced to resign from the cabinet in the wake of allegations involving him in the scam, that has dented the image of the UPA government.
Deputy chief minister and Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin was among those who receieved the prime minister, who arrived in the city this evening on a two-day visit to attend the 98th Indian Science Congress.
At the function celebrating the release of a compilation of 1,000 poems by Vairamuthu, Karunanidhi recalled the dismissal of his government in 1991 on the issue of support to Sri Lankan Tamils and voiced hope that such a situation would not recur.
The chief minister said Vairamuthu had then written that after "Anarkali, democracy was the second casualty to be buried in India".
Karunanidhi said he had telephoned Vairamuthu next day to congratulate him on the poem irrespective of the fact that he had lost his government.
He told Vairamuthu that he was a connoisseur of poems and that he was happy that he got a wonderful poetry even if he had lost his government.
When Vairamuthu said that such an occasion (again writing such a poetry) should not recur, he had told him, "If everyone behaves well, it will not come."
"I have come to this function with the hope that everyone will behave well," he added.
Karunanidhi also said though he had a duty to perform of receiving the prime minister, he skipped that to come here for the function because he respected Tamil and Vairamuthu.
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