Low key birthday for embattled Karunanidhi

With daughter in jail and the party that lost the polls mired in neck deep corruption charges, on Friday a low key 88th birthday was observed by the embattled Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) patriarch M Karunanidhi on the event of which he also sent out a message for his followers.

“Bad friendship will end in trouble,” was his statement to the party workers on the birthday (supposedly aimed at the Congress at the centre) and had earlier said he was not in a frame of mind to participate in big birthday events.

?I am not in a mood to take part in any of the programmes organised on my birthday on June 3 except for paying homage at the memorials of Anna and Periyar,” he said in the statement.

“The DMK cadre should not insist on meeting me in person to greet me on June 3 either at my residence or at DMK headquarters. The DMK cadre and people of Tamil Nadu should excuse me for this,? he said.

The DMK chief spent his day away from fanfare which is usual for him in previous years.

Daughter Kanimozhi is languishing in Tihar jail in the 2G spectrum scandal along with former Telecoms Minister A Raja, also his relative while another relative in politics, Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran is also embroiled in the same 2G scam.

A trip to Delhi to visit Kanimozhi in jail was cancelled late Thursday night around 10 pm.

In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa is turning the heat on the DMK.

The state government announced a Commission of Inquiry into construction of the New Assembly secretariat complex by the Karunanidhi government.

“There have been allegations of excess and wasteful expenditure and deficiency in the standards of new Secretariat building,” Governor S S Barnala said in his address to the legislative assembly session.

He said the commission would be headed by a retired High court judge.

With the odds heavily against him, Karunanidhi is perhaps living the cruelest birthday of his life.