AIADMK, DMK at loggerheads again....

 AIADMK, DMK at loggerheads again....

The latest incident that aggravated the tension between the Dravidian majors is the AIADMK boycotting an important state event on Monday when President Ram Nath Kovind commemorated the centenary celebrations of the Madras Legislative Council, where he unveiled a portrait of late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi.

A period of amiability between the DMK and AIADMK parties in Tamil Nadu seems to be winding up as the ruling and opposition parties have begun cold-shouldering one another.

The latest incident that aggravated the tension between the Dravidian majors is the AIADMK boycotting an important state event on Monday when President Ram Nath Kovind commemorated the centenary celebrations of the Madras Legislative Council, where he unveiled a portrait of late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi.

On Tuesday, DMK’s water resources minister S Duraimurugan revealed that he rang up former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami to personally invite him to attend the event on chief minister M K Stalin’s instruction. Stalin had also decided to reserve a chair for Palaniswami so he could be seated along with the President and governor Banwarilal Purohit on the dais. “I conveyed these details to him,” Duraimurugan told reporters in the secretariat. “He said he will consult his party and respond but he didn’t tell me anything while he informed the Assembly Secretary that AIADMK will not participate.”

The AIADMK skipped the event saying that the DMK had boycotted a similar event when they had unveiled J Jayalalithaa’s portrait in 2018. “She’s a global leader and we invited them just like they have invited us now. But why did they boycott then? They didn’t respect our party,” said AIADMK spokesperson and former minister D Jayakumar. “In 2012, when Amma (Jayalalithaa) was the chief minister, diamond jubilee celebrations were conducted, in which Pranab Mukherjee had participated. But they (DMK) didn’t participate in that either.”