PMK re-entry: Decision after DMK council meet

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, AUG. 10. In the absence of a consensus on admitting the PMK into the State NDA, the DMK president, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, today said a decision would be taken after a meeting of his party's administrative council.

Talking to reporters here, he said though the PMK founder, Dr. S. Ramadoss, had expressed an intention to meet him, there was no further word from the PMK. ``If everyone wants to function again as an alliance, then there is no need for issuing statements indiscriminately attacking one another,'' the DMK leader said.

Though he had spoken to the DPI leader, Mr. R. Tirumavalavan, there was no further progress.

Mr. Karunanidhi criticised the statements made by Mr. Tirumavalavan and the Puthiya Tamilagam leader, Dr. K. Krishnasamy. The problem started after Dr. Ramadoss had stated his readiness to meet Mr. Tirumavalavan to sort out this issue.

After the PMK was admitted to the national-level NDA, he said he would take a decision on the issue after meeting Dr. Ramadoss. He tried to contact both Mr. Tirumavalavan and Dr. Krishnasamy. While Mr. Tirumavalavan met him, Dr. Krishnasamy was yet to do so, the DMK leader said. To a specific question, Mr. Karunanidhi declined to say that Dr. Ramadoss was not eager to meet him. He would not like to blame anyone for the problem. But, there indeed was a hurdle to the entry of the PMK, he added.

Though he was the leader of the State NDA, the leaders of other parties were not under his control. While he could enforce compliance of the partners with decisions taken by the alliance, he would not be able to solve differences between individual constituents.

Asked whether national-level leaders of the NDA had asked him to admit the PMK into the State NDA, he said they had not yet spoken to him on these lines. There was no urgency to settle the issue as no election was due immediately.

As for the local bodies elections, the NDA constituents were free to take their own decisions. The DMK would take its decision after the elections were announced, he said.

In a separate statement, Mr. Tirumavalavan said Dr. Ramadoss' remark that he did not consider the DPI a political party betrayed his casteism. Dr. Ramadoss, he said, did not think of slum-dwellers as human beings.

Our Coimbatore Staff Reporter Reports:

The BJP State unit believes that the presence of both the PMK and the DPI in the NDA will promote peace in northern districts.

On the reservations expressed by the DPI about the return of the PMK, the BJP State general secretary, Mr. H. Raja, told presspersons here today that his party wanted the DPI to stay in the NDA along with the PMK so that peace could be sustained in northern districts.

The suggestion made in the tone of an appeal to the DPI, comes in the backdrop of the standoff between Vanniyars and Dalits in these districts.

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