Stay united, VCK chief appeals to Karunanidhi’s family

VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan, who was among the leaders who had frequently visited Karunanidhi at home and hospital, has now appealed for unity within and outside the family for the DMK to be a major trump card in fighting communal and casteist forces in the ensuing election. Thirumavalavan made the veiled appeal to the DMK family even as rumours were emanating from Kauvery Hospital about differences among the relatives. 

Going by sources, differences, in fact, had erupted even prior to the hospitalisation when the members of Karunanidhi’s clan got into a huddle to discuss the treatment to be given to the ailing DMK chief. Sources close to the family revealed that one of the male family members had objected to the presence of two senior party members, who had arrived at Gopalapuram to take part in the discussion at the behest of DMK president MK Stalin. The irked DMK seniors had left the scene sulking. Also, a few other senior members had expressed disappointment at the influence of a few family members.  

The fracture in the familial ties were visible even when they had hosted a few visitors, mainly actor Rajinikanth. It was easy to discern from the photographs released by the party and others that DMK working president Stalin and his elder brother MK Alagiri had hosted Rajinikanth separately in the same hospital.

While a visibly uncomfortable Rajinikanth was seen discussing inquiring with some other persons in the lone photograph of him sitting beside Stalin released by the party PR managers, photographs released by other sources showed Alagiri and Rajinikanth all smiles in another room in the same hospital and that too in the company of Congress leader Karate Thiyagarajan. Perhaps, Thiruma was right in preaching the virtues of family unity, more so when rumours abound about the estranged son taking to warpath against the politically all-powerful younger son in the days to come.