Ramadoss flays Karunanidhi for 'vindictive politics'

Chennai, Jun 14: PMK, one of the allies of the DMK-led DPA, has hit back at DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi for branding PMK as ''a violent party.''

Reacting to Mr Karunanidhi's remarks that the DMK's high-level committee would soon meet to take a decision on continuing its ties with a violent party like the PMK, PMK founder-leader S Ramadoss strongly condemned it. ''Mr Karunanidhi's remarks only showed that he can not tolerate political and people issues raised by the PMK in various fora and is now trying to portray PMK as a violent party,'' he said in a statement here last night. Asserting that he had always been raising his voice against violence in politics, Dr Ramadoss accused the Chief Minister of pursuing vindictive politics, which would never succeed. ''Parties raising political issues has to be faced politically. The DMK should not let loose vindictive action, just because it is in power,'' he charged. On Mr Karunanidhi's reference to the speech made by PMK functionary Kaduvetti Guru, the PMK chief said the speech was made by him in January at the PMK's General Council in Perambalur. Recalling the cases registered against PMK workers and the subsequent attack on the party men by the ruling DMK workers, he said Mr Karunanidhi was trying to divert the attention by projecting as if the speech was made recently.

Dr Ramadoss also took exception to Mr Karunanidhi's remarks that the speech of Mr Guru was a fallout of a murder conspiracy. ''This clearly showed that a conspiracy was being hatched to arrest not only Mr Guru, but also some frontline PMK leaders.'' Observing that facing such vindictive action was not new to the PMK, he alleged that apart from moves to arrest Mr Guru, there had been a high-level conspiracy to eliminate him. "I have reliable information that a meeting was held in this regard at the residence of a senior DMK Minister,'' he said and added that it was in this background that Mr Guru's speech, made six months ago, had been raked up by the DMK.

UNI