Galaxy of national leaders to attend Karunanidhi memorial event today

Chennai, Aug 30: A memorial event for the late M Karunanidhi will be held at 4 pm on the YMCA grounds in Chennai on Thursday. A galaxy of national leaders cutting across party lines are liklely to attend the event. The five-time chief minister and DMK president passed away at the age of 94 on August 7.

Several leaders are expected to fly down to the city for the event, including Chief Ministers Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal, N Chandrababu Naidu and V Narayanaswamy.

JD(S)'s H D Deve Gowda, Congress' Ghulam Nabi Azad, NCP's Sharad Pawar, National Congress' Farooq Abdullah, TMC's Derek O'Brien, CPM's Sitaram Yechury and Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy will also be in attendance.

While there were reports that the DMK had invited BJP chief Amit Shah for the event, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is likely to represent the party today.