CHENNAI/THOOTHUKUDI: Amid speculation that a grand alliance headed by the DMK might take shape for the 2016 Assembly polls, PMK founder S Ramadoss on Wednesday called on DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi and extended an invitation for his granddaughter’s wedding.
Answering mediapersons after a 20- minute meeting with the DMK chief at his Gopalapuram residence, Ramadoss denied discussing politics. “We discussed about the wedding...I have always been inviting Karunanidhi for all my family functions and he had graced all such occasions. This time too, the DMK chief has agreed to grace the wedding,” he maintained.
Referring to political decency prevailing in the north among netas of different shades, he said Kalaignar has always maintained that in Tamil Nadu despite differences of opinion. The PMK leader was accompanied by wife Saraswathi.
Meanwhile, the PMK’s emerging posterboy Anbumani Ramadoss asked not to give a political colour to his father meeting the DMK patriarch. “Don’t mix family matters with politics,” he told reporters at Thoothukudi, after a meeting of party functionaries from the Southern districts.
Making it clear that his father had gone to invite Karunanidhi for his (Anbumani’s) daughter’s weeding, he said it has nothing to do with Politics.
However, to a question about any change in alliance for the 2016 Assembly elections, he said “wait and see there is lot of time.”
Yet, he dismissed reports of Vaiko leaving the NDA, denying any rift in the saffron combine for the MDMK to desert it. Bemoaning the Tamirabarani waters draining into the sea, he called for constructing check dams. Referring to the demand for a rocket launching station at Kulasekarapattinam in the district, the PMK leader said he would take it up with the PM.
On the threat to the 69 per cent reservation followed in TN, he claimed that more than 80 per cent of the population of the state has been categorised as Backward, Most Backward, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Hence, the state government should conduct a proper caste-based enumeration to win the case in the Supreme Court. PMK President, G.K.Mani, was also present on the occasion.