After poll debacle, Stalin offers to quit; Karuna ‘forgets’ Alagiri

The rumblings raging in the DMK first family in the wake of sibling war on Sunday escalated when treasurer MK Stalin offered to quit party posts owning responsibility for the Lok Sabha poll decimation, only to retract quickly under the command of his father M Karunanidhi.

Two days after the worst ever rout in the polls DMK faced at the hands of arch rival AIADMK, Stalin in a dramatic development offered to relinquish party posts, but backtracked within hours after his father rejected it saying ‘time is not apt for taking such decisions’.

As Karunanidhi’s other belligerent son MK Alagiri dubbed the resignation as a ‘drama’ and predicted that his brother would backtrack under alibi that his father ordered it, the 89-year-old patriarch in an angry outburst thundered ‘it is a long time since myself and DMK haver forgotten him’.

‘The party has lost twice or thrice even when Alagiri was in DMK’, Karunanidhi said slamming the expelled leader and insisted that ‘I don’t want to talk anything more about him’.

Alagiri had earlier demanded the resignation of Stalin, who took charge of the party’s polls battle including selection of candidates and campaign.

Apparently to enthuse the sagging morale of the party cadres in the backdrop of its humiliating defeat, Karunanidhi announced that a high level committee would probe the losses and analyse causes for the rout.

Karunanidhi said it was true that Stalin had offered to quit, but dismissed reports in a section of media that his son had tendered resignation.

Earlier in the day, senior party leader Durai Murugan had said Stalin has consented to withdraw resignation on the advise by his father.

‘All this is a drama. He will pretend to give resignation letter. Someone will prevent him. Then the DMK president will say he will not accept the resignation. You wait and see how long this drama is enacted,’ a sulking Alagiri had quipped while speaking to the press in Madurai.

DMK scored a blank in the election in which AIADMK swept winning 37 of the 39 seats.

As the news of Stalin resignation spread, his supporters protested outside the leader’s residence demanding that he continue to lead the party.

Meanwhile, some journalists were injured when they were roughed up allegedly by the protesting supporters. They were apparently upset over the coverage of some TV channels of Sunday’s resignation episode.