Karuna springs a surprise, says wants to retire next year

CHENNAI: Springing a surprise on close party colleagues, octogenarian chief minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi on Saturday virtually announced that he would retire from active electoral politics and administration by the middle of next year to dedicate himself to the welfare of the downtrodden. He said he had fulfilled almost all his ideals and what remained was to see the completion of the new secretariat complex and a world class library in Chennai and hold a world classical Tamil conference in June 2010.
“After all this, I will dedicate the rest of my life to the welfare of the people, brushing aside the trappings of power and politics,” he said at a thanks-giving meet organised by the Arunthathiar community for introducing a sub-quota for it within the Scheduled Class.
While the ambitious assembly-cum-secretariat project is expected to be completed by January next, the library building will come up by June 2010, by when the Tamil conference would also be held. By June 2010, Karunanidhi would have completed 86 years of age and seven decades in public life.
The move comes five months after M K Stalin, the heir apparent, was made deputy chief minister and officially made No 3 in the party (after Karunanidhi and general secretary K Anbazhagan).
"The question is whether I need this ministerial office to work for the oppressed classes. My own answer: Distancing myself from office and politics, I will come closer to you and consider myself as one among you,” said Karunanidhi, triggering speculation that he was hinting at a retirement.
Karunanidhi said the Dravidian movement had always been spurred by the need to uplift the downtrodden sections of society. “Liberty and self-respect have always evaded you. We are working hard to achieve this,” he said.
Over the years, Stalin has emerged a key campaigner for the party and played a crucial role as a poll strategist. He rose as the party’s second-in-command and campaigned across Tamil Nadu during the last Lok Sabha elections after Karunanidhi took ill. The DMK-Congress combine scored an impressive victory and the party gave much of the credit to Stalin.
While party seniors are in the dark as to what prompted their leader to drop such a strong hint about his desire to distance himself from active politics, that too at a time when the party is in power in the state and at the Centre, some interpret it as a move on Karunanidhi’s part to feel the pulse of the people and party cadres ahead of the assembly elections in May 2011.
gunasekaran.m@timesgroup.com