In a candid admission four months after his party's rout in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Friday said internal differences and the activities of some party men resulted in the "very huge defeat."
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi, who had recently announced his party's decision to face civic polls without ally Congress, on Wednesday, said he was not sure if the national party would support DMK in the Tiruchirappalli (West) bye-election.
Kanimozhi, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Member of Parliament and daughter of former Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, who was arrested in connection with the 2G spectrum case, will move the Delhi high court for bail. A day after her arrest, the DMK MP on Saturday looked calm and composed before the special court during the day-long proceedings. She was escorted to the courtroom by women constables, and did not talk much while she sat next to her husband Aravindan.
An official release in Chennai on Wednesday said Chief Minister M Karunanidhi announced the reward for Karthik, who belongs to the state.
"By making this assertion, Karunanidhi is not expressing his concern for the poor and downtrodden in the state. On the contrary he was only publicly reinforcing the rich-poor divide," she said in a statement in Chennai.
Handed down one of the worst poll debacles, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Friday said the people of the state had given him "proper rest," indicating the burden of office was removed from his ageing shoulders
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi was on Thursday questioned by Income Tax authorities for nearly 90 minutes about the Rs 200 crore transaction from Shahid Balwa-owned DB Realty to Kalaignar TV, in which she holds a minority stake. The 43-year-old Member of Parliament appeared after summons were issued by the department, as a Delhi court probing the 2G spectrum allocation exempted her from personal experience.
The issue of corruption will be tested when the results of Tamil Nadu assembly elections would be declared on May 13.
Union Minister MK Alagiri and his sister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Member of Parliament Kanimozhi, children of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi both were travelling from Chennai to New Delhi by the same Indian Airlines flight on Tuesday.
Clad in a white shirt and black pant, the actor extended his new year greetings and apprised the DMK president and his aides of his political plunge.
Upset over the naming of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi in the 2G scam charge sheet, United Progressive Alliance's key ally Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam on Monday decided to convene a high-level committee meeting on Wednesday to plan its future course of action.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Friday appealed to Congress President Sonia Gandhi to intervene and save the lives of three death row convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, saying appeals by Tamils across the world needed to be considered in the spirit of "forget and forgive".
''He had given tools to fight all forms of homogenisation.'
The DMK is having a meeting on Saturday to discuss the situation arising out the raids and what steps the party needs to take and what kind of reaction to formulate.
Two districts where most of the cash and jewellery has been recovered are Madurai and Tiruchirapalli, both bastions of the rulng DMK.
The DMK feels its genuine gestures have had no bearing on the governor's politico-administrative conduct, which is 'more political and politicised than administrative and Constitutional', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Kanimozhi on Sunday said she and her party would together face the 2G spectrum case with the "right approach" and hoped she would prove her innocence.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's daughter Selvi is sweating it out in Thiruvarur, seeking votes for her father. Despite odds stacked up against him, her father's AIADMK rival K M Rajendran is confident about causing an upset in the DMK chief's hometown. Saisuresh Sivaswamy reports from Thiruvarur.
The Central Bureau of India on Saturday told a special court in New Delhi that Rs 200 crore connected with 2G spectrum allocation scam has travelled from a partnership firm of Shahid Usman Balwa to Kalaignar TV Pvt Ltd whose owners include Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi's wife Dayaluamma.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's daughter and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi, who has been granted bail in the 2G spectrum case, will not reach Chennai till December 3 as she has to attend a court hearing in New Delhi in the multi-crore scam, the party said on Tuesday
An elated Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi on Monday expressed happiness over his daughter Kanimozhi getting bail in the 2G case and said the party would organise a big welcome for her, when she comes home.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M Karunanidhi on Wednesday assured to revive the banned bull-taming sport 'jallikattu'.
The Dravidian model of politics seems to depend on freebies, feeds on corruption and brazenly encourages crony capitalism, says M R Venkatesh.
As leaders go, while Modi's visits to the state will be watched with curiosity, Rahul will need to be dislodged from the popular consciousness -- Tamil Nadu is one state where he's present, notes Aditi Phadnis.
I do not agree with Parpola's unproven 'decipherment' of Indus script with the premise that old Tamil was the underlying language. It is simply a belief system and not premised on evidence of the corpus of inscriptions and the underlying cultural foundations of the civilization of 4,000 years ago, says Indologist Dr S Kalyanaraman.
Eighty-six-year-old Karunanidhi, accompanied by his sons Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin and Union Minister M K Alagiri, filed his papers before the election officer Jayaraj.
Taking the war of freebies to a new high, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam manifesto for the April 13 assembly elections on Thursday promised 20 kg of free rice for ration card-holders, laptops for students from classes XI, free fans, mixers and grinders to all and mineral water to BPL families. In a bid to woo women voters, Jayalalithaa promised four gm of gold for the 'thali' (mangalsutra) free of cost to the poor, besides cable TV connections at subsidised rate
Putting a lid on the succession war, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Sunday decided that it would be continued to be led by 88-year-old M Karunanidhi, and gave no indication of pulling out of the United Progressive Alliance coalition at the Centre.
The 2G spectrum scam involving DMK leader A Raja will have an impact on the party's prospects in the forthcoming Tamil Nadu assembly election, feels DMK spokesperson T K S Elangovan.
The Congress is now at its most vulnerable. For the moment, it has weathered the storm caused by the DMK, but not without some loss of credibility and appeal, says Praful Bidwai.
Widening its probe into the 2G scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday questioned Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi and his wife Dayalu Ammal on alleged transfer of money from Mumbai-based Cineyug to Kalaignar TV, in which both jointly own 80 per cent stake.
Slamming Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Congress as 'partners in corruption,' Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday alleged that the real agenda behind the 'seat sharing drama' between the two parties was to cover up the probe into 2G spectrum allocation scam and prevent it from extending to the family of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.
DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K V Thangkabalu signed the agreement, hammered out after hard bargaining by both sides for about a fortnight
The DMK on Monday put on hold the resignations of its six ministers from the UPA Government in a dramatic new turn, with the party and Congress engaged in hectic negotiations to sort out their seat-sharing problems in Tamil Nadu. Senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee telephoned DMK chief M Karunanidhi twice, and urged him not to pull out his ministers from the cabinet during the Budget Session, and sought a day's time to resolve problems.
"I will contest (for the post) If I am alive after one year," he told media persons in Chennai in what is seen as a message to his sons union Minister M K Alagiri and M K Stalin to put an end to the tug of war on the succession issue.
'The BJP has become a reasonably larger force in Tamil Nadu in the last two years.'
The actor makes a comeback to films with a double role in the Tamil flick, Ponnar Sankar.
Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi met his daughter Kanimozhi, who was arrested in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation case, in Delhi's Tihar Jail on Saturday. Karunanidhi, accompanied by his wife Rajathi Ammal and DMK leader T R Balu, drove into the Tihar premises in a car which entered through gate number 3 at around 4.45 pm. This is the third time Karunanidhi met his daughter since she was sent to Tihar prison on May 21.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are round the corner but 'Captain' -- as Vijayakanth is known -- isn't saying a word. The heart-throb of millions of Tamils and the leader of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam believes he holds all the aces.
The DMK and PMK on Friday clinched an alliance for the coming Tamil Nadu assembly polls, under which the ruling party's junior partner has been allotted 31 assembly seats. The deal was finalised at a meeting between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi and PMK founder Dr S Ramadoss in Chennai. Karunanidhi, announcing the accord at the end of the nearly 90-minute meeting with his former ally, said the two parties had decided to fight the elections jointly.