Stalin vows to teach BJP a lesson

Exactly 50 years after he launched the DMK’s Gopalapuram Youth Wing, a unit that served as the precursor to the party youth wing, M K Stalin on Tuesday stepped into his late father M Karunanidhi’s shoes and vowed to teach the BJP and the AIADMK a fitting political lesson.

While addressing the DMK general council he urged the cadres to come forward “to impart a fitting lesson to the BJP Government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi” which is seeking to paint India in saffron brush. He also called upon them to work to overthrow the “spineless” AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu.

Stalin accused the Modi Government of attempting to destroy the foundations of education, art, culture, literature and religion with “its power and communalism”. The AIADMK regime was an insult to the self-respect of Tamil Nadu, he said.

The sexagenarian leader, who patiently bid his time in the party during his father’s lifetime rising step by step, was on Tuesday unanimously elected DMK president – a post his father held for nearly half-a-century – by the members of the party general council.

He is only the third leader to head the DMK in its 69 years of existence. The party was founded by C N Annadurai in September 1949 and Karunanidhi became president after the former’s death in 1969.

Stalin’s ascension to the top following Karunanidhi’s death earlier this month was a foregone conclusion. Through hard work and some assistance from his father, he managed to outdo his elder brother M K Alagiri, who has been reduced to a figurehead following his expulsion from the DMK in 2014. The new party president also sought to redefine certain core ideologies of the DMK in alignment with changing times. As opposed to the ideology of atheism, the party had advocated all along, he said, the new party cadre would respect others’ faith in God, though they themselves may not believe in the omnipotent force. The party would however continue to view things within the prism of rationalism, giving equal respect to women, fighting for equal rights of the marginalised, and striving for a casteless society.