‘Uninvited’ TNCC chief attends Meira meeting

Highly-placed sources in the state Congress revealed that DMK had consciously avoided sending an invitation to Thirunavukkarasar for the meeting it had organised at a luxury hotel in the city on Saturday evening. Sources revealed to DTNext that the party was content with inviting Congress legislature party leader KR Ramasamy, whip S Vijayadharani and six other party MLAs and the decision to overlook the TNCC chief was a conscious one. 

The Dravidian major, which has not been comfortable with the affability of Thirunavukkarasar towards a section of the AIADMK members, mainly the Sasikala clan, since the later took over the reins of the TNCC, had already reported to the AICC about the irritation TNCC chief’s bonhomie with AIADMK had caused to it. 

However, it did not deter Thirunavukkarasar, who had further strained the relationship with the DMK by getting his official PR managers in Sathyamurthy Bhavan to publicise AIADMK deputy general secretary TTV Dinakaran’s visit to his daughter’s betrothal, something he did not do for even to former union finance minister P Chidambaram, who had attended the same private function. Congress sources confided that the TNCC chief had called Stalin over phone after realising that DMK organisers had given him a miss. Stalin was understood to have given a non-committal reply during the conversation. Sadly, the TNCC chief could not give the meeting a miss despite the snubbing, courtesy the AICC, which had instructed him to accompany Meira Kumar, irrespective of the DMK not inviting him. However, Thirunavukkarasar dismissed it as ‘false’ and said they had jointly organised the meeting, as was done in other states she had toured thus far.

DMK working president MK Stalin on Saturday accused Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami of trying to disrupt the desilting works undertaken by his party workers. Addressing party workers after launching an afforestation drive in Saidapet constituency, Stalin said that his men were prevented from desilting a waterbody in the Chief Minister’s constituency, but the work continued after the local people intervened.