Karunanidhi re-elected DMK chief

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, APRIL 8. The DMK's general council today unanimously re- elected Mr. M. Karunanidhi as the party president for the eighth consecutive time, raised its political stakes over the Mullaperiyar dam issue and sought to strongly woo women and Dalits by slotting additional posts of deputy general secretary for them in the party's policy-making level.

With as many as 49 district secretaries proposing the name of Mr. Karunanidhi and over 50 other functionaries seconding his name, the 76-year-old Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu was elected unopposed as the DMK supremo.

Announcing this, Mr. S. Agniraj, party MP and election officer, also declared that Mr. K. Anbazhagan and Mr. Arcot N. Veeraswamy were re-elected as the DMK's general secretary and treasurer respectively.

Donning the mantle again, Mr.Karunanidhi pulled off a surprise by moving an amendment to the party constitution to have two more deputy general secretaries at the DMK headquarters level, taking the total to three. Of these, one each will be reserved for women and Dalits. This, he said, was an extension of the norm already introduced in the various party units from the grassroots level.

After the general council unanimously ratified the amendment, Mr. Karunanidhi announced that under the general category, the Revenue Minister, Mr. Nanjil K. Manoharan, was re-nominated as deputy general secretary.

Former Minister, Mrs. Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, was made the new deputy general secretary and the Dairy Minister, Mr. K. Sundaram, was the other new incumbent, representing Adi Dravidars, he declared to the full approval of the party's supreme body.

``It is a radical change in the party structure'', DMK sources said. The elevation of Mrs. Jagadeesan, in particular, was `well deserved' as she had stood by the party in trying times after being charge-sheeted in the EPRLF leader Padmanabha murder case and having got her name cleared, sources said. A relatively younger Mr.Sundaram has been rewarded for his hard work.

The politically most significant resolution adopted by the DMK strongly condemned the Kerala Left Front Government's `refusal' to consider even Tamil Nadu's arguments for raising the water storage level in the Mullaperiyar dam , as the emergency and medium-term measures to strengthen the dam had been implemented.

While lauding Mr. Karunanidhi's efforts to amicably resolve the issue, the party decided to organise protest meetings in five southern districts - Theni, Dindigul, Madurai, Sivagangai and Ramanathapuram - on April 15 and 16.

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