Heat generated at the closed-door meeting when both sides objected to remarks by each other on the party's functioning during and after the recent assembly elections which relegated DMK to the third spot.
Ahead of a crucial meeting of DMK's highest policy-making body, differences seemed to have cropped up between the supporters of party chief M Karunanidhi's two sons at the executive meet in Coimbatore on Saturday on the issue of assembly polls which saw the party's rout.
Heat generated at the closed-door meeting when both sides objected to remarks by each other on the party's functioning during and after the recent assembly elections which relegated DMK to the third spot.
DMK Treasurer MK Stalin's supporters pitched for greater role for their leader which was resented by the followers of Union Minister MK Alagiri who is strongly in favour of their 87-year old father continuing to lead the party.
Party insiders, who attended the meeting, said senior leader and General Secretary K Anbalagan intervened and pacified both the groups.
"Tomorrow" was the one-word reply by Alagiri when asked by reporters about Saturday's deliberations. Emerging from the meeting, Karunanidhi and Stalin avoided mediapersons while DMK Parliamentary Party leader TR Baalu said the meeting discussed the poll performance and the spate of land grabbing cases being slapped against partymen after AIADMK came to power.
At the meet, Karunanidhi told his partymen that 'all of us are equally to blame' (for the poll debacle) and asserted DMK was a fortress that had withstood even the Emergency.
"This setback is not worse than Emergency," Karunanidhi, whose government was dismissed and his son Stalin put in prison during that period, said.
The DMK patriarch sounded confident that the party would win the next elections.
The General Council will take a call on key issues, including continuance of DMK's alliance with Congress in the wake of 2G scam that resulted in imprisonment of Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and A Raja and costed Raja and Dayanidhi Maran their union cabinet berths.
Replying to whether the meeting would discuss DMK's relationship with Congress, he said "it will also be discussed."
Earlier, putting at rest speculation about his participation in DMK's General Council meeting, Alagiri arrived in the city where the main thoroughfares were dotted with banners carrying photographs of Karunanidhi and Stalin.
Speculation about Alagiri's presence was fuelled by reports that a section in the party wanted elevation of Stalin to pave the way for him to take over the mantle.
Tomorrow's meeting, the first after DMK's electoral debacle in April, is expected to give a new direction to the party amidst criticism over the first family's domination and strained ties with Congress in the wake of continued incarceration of Kanimozhi in Tihar Jail.
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