DMK defers party general meet amid M Karunanidhi's hospitalisation

DMK on Saturday deferred its December 20 general council meeting where party treasurer M K Stalin was expected to be elevated as working president.

Stalin’s elevation is on the cards as both party chief M Karunanidhi and veteran leader K Anbazhagan, who is also the party General Secretary, have not been keeping well lately.

The general council meeting was postponed in view of the hospitalisation of Karunanidhi, Anbazhagan said. In a release, he said a new date for the general council meeting will be announced later.

Another DMK headquarters release said Karunanidhi will be in the hospital for “some more days” to undergo treatment.

The party asked party cadres and friends to avoid visiting him and “cooperate”. The party had made a similar appeal when Karunanidhi was admitted to the hospital for drug-induced allergy in October.

The party also quoted Kauvery Hospital’s health bulletin yesterday which said Karunanidhi was stable having undergone the tracheostomy procedure.

Although generally active, 92-year-old Karunanidhi was not keeping well in the recent past and he did not campaign in the November bypolls in Tamil Nadu though he hit the campaign trail for the May 2016 Assembly election.

In the run up to the Assembly polls this year, the nonagenarian leader had said that he would be the chief minister if his party won the May 16 assembly election and his son M K Stalin has to wait “till nature does something to me”.

In October, he however gave ample indication that Stalin was on his way to become the party chief.

“From his prison days (during emergency, 1975-77) where he faced a lot of hardships, he has worked very hard and elevated himself systematically to the position of future president of DMK,” he had said.

Also, Stalin’s supporters, for the past few years, have been impressing upon the party leadership to pass on the baton to their leader. Stalin is the leader of opposition in the Assembly and party Treasurer.