Dayanidhi to vote in support of Congress

Chennai, Jul 20: Breaking his silence on his stand during the crucial trust vote in Parliament on July 22, former Union Minister and DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran said he would vote in support of the Congress-led UPA Government. Mr Maran's clarification at a press conference that he would abide by the DMK leadership's decision to vote in support of the government puts at rest speculations and media reports that he might abstain from voting. Son of former Union Minister and DMK ideologue Murasoli Maran, Mr Dayanidhi Maran is the estranged grand nephew of Chief Minister and DMK President M Karunanidhi.

Mr Dayanidhi Maran, the former Union IT and Communications Minister, was forced to quit the Union Cabinet after he fell out of favour of Mr Karunanidhi's family, following publication of an opinion poll in his Tamil daily Dinakaran on the political heir apparent to the Chief Minister last year.

Since then, efforts were being made for a rapprochement between the two families, but it could not materialise.

Hailing Mr Karunanidhi as a great leader, Mr Maran said he would always continue to be a loyal worker of the DMK, on whose ticket he was elected to the Lok Sabha, and a staunch loyalist of the DMK Patriarch.

UNI