DMK workers break cordon to meet Karunanidhi, cops stop them at gates

Around 6 PM on Sunday, the multitude camped outside

Kauvery hospital

, where DMK supremo M Karunanidhi is admitted, began to grow restless. News that all was not well with their leader had trickled out.

READ ALSO: DMK supporters swarm Kauvery Hospital where M Karunanidhi is admitted


Assurances by hospital authorities, warnings by police and pleas by DMK leaders did little to placate the

crowd

, which grew in number and became more recalcitrant as the evening progressed. By 10.30 pm, around 25,000 loyalists had assembled outside the hospital. They tried to scale the wall to get in, overturned barricades and blocked exit routes, forcing police to resort to lathi charge.

Crowd overturned barricades and blocked exit routes
For close to an hour, Karunanidhi’s family and senior party leaders -- who had arrived at the hospital when his vitals had temporarily dropped in the evening – were locked in as the crowd refused to let them out. DMK leader A Raja stepped out twice to address party cadres, assuring them Karunanidhi’s condition had stabilised. It took an additional police force to contain the mob, following which leaders’ vehicles were escorted out by a police cordon. At least one person was injured in the melee.

Karunanidhi’s family and senior party leaders arrived at the hospital

The crowd had sensed trouble when district secretaries and party MLAs from Chennai and nearby areas started making a beeline for the hospital along with Karunanidhi’s family. Congress leader P Chidambaram as well as other party leaders were seen leaving the premises with a grim face. A discomfiting silence prevailed among the crowd, which continued to grow in number. The silence was broken at 9.50pm when the hospital issued a bulletin saying there was only a transient setback to Karunanidhi’s condition, but with active medical support his vital signs were normalising. The crowd broke into a boisterous cheer with cries.

The crowd broke into a boisterous cheer with cries

But the celebration soon turned into angry scenes when party cadres tried to break the security cordon to get into the hospital to see their leader. Some of them refused to believe the official bulletin as messages that their leader was dead had begun to do the rounds on social media.


Earlier, Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, accompanied by TN governor Banwarilal Purohit, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan, state fisheries minister D Jayakumar, visited the ICU where Karunanidhi is being treated. The DMK released photographs showing Naidu, Purohit, Stalin, Kanimozhi and Karunanidhi’s wife Rajathi Ammal inside the ICU.


Sunday saw several high-profile politicians visiting the hospital. “I sincerely hope Kalaignar will once again come back active and give us guidance and support,” said CPM general secretary Sitaraman Yechury. CPI national secretary D Raja said Karunanidhi was a tall leader who fought for state’s rights.


Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien, was the first to visit the hospital.