DMK win shows people's faith in the party: Karunanidhi

Chennai, Oct 17: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK President M Karunanidhi today said the party's resounding victory in the Madurai Central assembly bye-election showed people's renewed faith in the DMK Government.

Talking to newspersons here, he said the victory by a massive margin of more than 30,000 votes clearly showed that the people have reaffirmed their faith in the Government and given a clean chit to the four-month-old ruling.

Mr Karunanidhi said the implementation of DMK's poll promises, the strength of the alliance and the disinformation campaign launched by Ms Jayallaithaa that the Government would stop the implementation of the welfare schemes after the elections have contributed for the victory.

Soon after coming to power, the Government had ordered distribution of rice at Rs two per kg, launched free distribution of lands, revived the pregnant women marriage assistance scheme and 'Uzavar sandai', he said. Of all the schemes, he considered the cheap rice and free land distribution schemes as his pet schemes, he said.

On Ms Jayalalithaa's demand for enacting anti-defection law for the local body elections, Mr Karunanidhi said the AIADMK leader, who was making a ''hue and cry'' over the anti-defection law now, remained silent when the State Election Commission wrote to the Government in 2004, when she was in power, recommending for the law.

On the other hand, Ms Jayalalithaa was encouraging defections by embarassing the MLAs of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) when she was at the helm of affairs, he charged.

To a question, Mr Karunanidhi said he agreed with PMK leader S Ramadoss on the need to dispense with Panchayat unions and district panchayats and have only two-tier system for local bodies.

The present Panchayat act only ensured elections to the local bodies in every five years. To that extent, we could welcome the act, but he always considered the two-tier system introduced by late K Kamaraj was best suited for the State.

Rejecting a suggestion that cracks have developed in the DPA, Mr Karunanidhi said there was no need for convening the DPA meeting to discuss the issue. As and when problems arose, the DMK held talks with the allies and sorting out the problems, he added.

On Dr Ramadoss's suggestion that he should lead an all-party delegation to the Centre to highlight the Sri Lankan Tamils issue, he said whether the Congress would join the delegation would be a big question. Instead of taking a delegation, it would be better to hold an all party meeting here and get to know the stands of the political parties on the issue, he added.

UNI