MK Alagiri warns DMK of dire consequences

Madurai: The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) working president M.K. Stalin is all set to ascend the throne as the chief at the party’s general council meet at Chennai on Tuesday even as elder brother M.K. Alagiri sounded yet again his war-cry that the party would come to grief if it continues to keep him out. “If they do not readmit me, they will have to face the consequences,” Alagiri told reporters on Monday.

He said he would go ahead with the ‘silent’ march to his father Karunanidhi’s burial site at Marina on September 5. “The party cadres only wanted me to take the lead in organising the march to pay homage,” Alagiri said.

Sounding bitter and angry, the former Union minister insisted that while he had never craved for any position in the party, his present mission was only aimed at saving the DMK in the present crisis caused by Karunanidhi’s death on August 7.  

“I had kept quiet since Kalaignar was alive. He is not there now. The party has to be saved and protected,” Alagiri said.    

Seeking to deflect a reporter’s question why he has declared war now  after having kept mum when his father elevated Stalin as the party’s working president (January 4, 2017), Alagiri claimed that his father had wanted to readmit him into the DMK, “but these people (the Stalin group) were preventing him then”.