Chennai, February 13
More than six years after her party pulled down the United Front government on the issue of DMK’s alleged links with the LTTE which had assassinated Rajiv Gandhi, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today met M. Karunanidhi for the first time and gave a clean chit to the party on the issue.After the first-ever visit by a Congress President to the DMK office, she told mediapersons that the final report of the Jain Commission, which went into Rajiv’s assassination, had made no “negative
comments” against DMK leaders on the issue.
“The interim report had made some adverse comments on some (DMK) leaders. But the final report did not have any negative comments on the leaders. Which is more important, interim or final,” she asked in reply to reporters’ questions.
On the basis of the interim report of the commission that the alleged links between the LTTE and the DMK had contributed to Rajiv’s assassination, the Congress had demanded the ouster of DMK ministers from the I.K. Gujral government. When it was not heeded to, the party withdrew support to the government resulting in its fall.
On a five-hour visit to Chennai to consolidate the alliance between the two parties, Sonia Gandhi was hosted a tea at the DMK headquarters with top leaders from both the sides attending it. The Congress has got 10 out of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu under a seat-sharing formula.
Describing her 30-minute meeting with Karunanidhi as “good”, she said by visiting Chennai to meet him, she fulfilled one of her promises made to the two DMK leaders, M.K. Stalin and T.R. Baalu, who met her in New Delhi recently.
Sonia Gandhi said the DMK-led democratic progressive alliance was “a formidable and winning alliance”.
Karunanidhi later told mediapersons that it was “a politically good and honest meeting.”
— PTI
