CHENNAI: DMK leader M K Kanimozhi’s poem on Sunday appealing for the return of her father and party chief M Karunanidhi has been read as alluding to a leadership vacuum in the State.
While the poem is largely a grim reflection on the blood shed during the recent anti-Sterlite protests, some have interpreted it as making apparent her disappointment in her brother M K Stalin’s leadership of the DMK as its working president. “We are all pulling the chariot, but it has not moved. Before our hands get tired, lose confidence and fall, please come back,” reads a line in the poem.
“She has said something many of us could not openly say. We have a strong leader, several second-rung leaders, but our (the party’s) position has been at a standstill since the demise of J Jayalalithaa (late Chief Minister). Except for walking out of Assembly, we have been unable to do much politically,” a DMK MLA told Express.
Kanimozhi has publicly accepted Stalin’s leadership and both present a united front. Interestingly, while the poem was published in some Tamil newspapers, it was not published in Murasoli, the DMK mouthpiece.