Police should obey party in power: Karunanidhi

Chennai, May 12 (UNI) Police have no other choice but to obey the orders of whichever party in power, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi told the state Assembly today.

Replying to the debate on the demand for grants for police department, Mr Karunanidhi, who is holding the police portfolio, told the Opposition AIADMK that ''if you are in power, the police will listen to you and if we are in power, they will listen to us.'' Indirectly referring to his midnight arrest in June 2002, during the previous AIADMK regime, the Chief Minister said ''if I ask them to arrest someone in midnight, they will do it.'' Stating that being Anna's (late Chief Minister C N Annadurai) brother, he would be liberal in forgiving them, if they sought pardon and he too had pardoned them, Mr Karunanidhi said, indicating how the police was placed in an awkward position whenever there was change of government in the state.

But both the parties should realise that they come to power to serve the people and there was no point waging a war of words on under whose regime, the police functioned effectively, he said.

There were no high tempers, normally associated with the debate and reply on police demands, when the Chief Minister replied to the debate taking gentle jibes on the AIADMK members, who had participated in the debate.

The house was sent into peels of laughter, when Mr Karunanidhi referred former AIADMK minister Pollachi V Jayaraman as ''good old friend'' and commended him for raising a series of questions in a typical Chiefton Veerapandiya Kattabomman style.

Mr Karunanidhi twice took dig at another member V P Kalairajan, who wondered why police refused to give him a gun licence.

Mr Karunanidhi said when he went to his friend's house at midnight after touring North Arcot district with party founder leader Anna, the friend suggested that he should have a gun for safety.

He had told his friend in lighter vein that ''those who come to attack him will bring the gun,'' implying that he would snatch the gun from him and kill him.

The police would have thought that Mr Kalairajan was such a capable person, he said amidst another round of laughter.

Mr Karunandhi also had a dig at Mr P K Sekar Babu (AIADMK) for being clever, while comparing the crime rates in two years after the DMK came to power in May 2006. The member acted too smart in hiding the crime rate during the previous AIADMK regime.

UNI WS SJ NY ND1834