Karunanidhi to visit Delhi to meet daughter Kanimozhi

Chennai, May 22: DMK President M Karunanidhi will be in New Delhi on Monday, May 23, to meet his daughter Kanimozhi, who is in jail in the 2G Spectrum scam, but may not meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

"Yes. I am going to Delhi (to meet Kanimozhi)," the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister told reporters when asked whether he will be visiting the capital on Monday, May 23.

Asked whether he would meet Gandhi, he said: "I don't think there won't be any opportunity." Karunanidhi meets Sonia Gandhi whenever he visits New Delhi. It has been the practice ever since the party aligned with Congress in 2004.

The DMK chief's primary purpose of Delhi visit is to meet Kanimozhi, who is Tihar jail since Friday on bribery charges. His wife Rajathi Ammal had met Kanimozhi on Saturday, May 22, at the court.

Karunanidhi is likely to arrive in Delhi on Monday, Monday 23 morning, and return the same evening. It was not clear whether he would meet his daughter at the court or at the jail.

The DMK chief had yesterday in a epistle to party cadres put up a spirited defence of Kanimozhi, saying her only crime was being a shareholder of ''Kalaignar TV''.

"The arrest is a vendetta against DMK and my family ranging from Kanyakumari to Himalayas", Karunanidhi said.

However, the DMK patriarch said he was confident of winning the 'final war'. Karunanidhi said it was he who advised Kanimozhi to be a shareholder of Kalaignar TV through the money received from Sun Television Network when his wife Dayaluammal sold her share for Rs 100 crore in October 2005.

Out of this money received from the network, Rs 22.5 crore was paid as tax while the "remaining was shared", Karunanidhi said without elaborating.

"It was I who asked Kanimozhi to pay her share amount of Rs two crore to become a shareholder of Kalaignar TV.

"Though she was not inclined, she accepted my advice to be a shareholder of Kalaignar TV. This is the only crime she (Kanimozhi) committed", Karunanidhi said.

"It is common for a shareholder to be a part of the company's profits and losses. But they are not responsible for its day-to-day activities," he said.

PTI