Chief minister and DMK president M. Karunanidhi has said he is open to sharing power should the poll verdict force it, though he believed that his party would win the majority to form the government.
Asked if he was prepared for a coalition government since the DMK was contesting only 121 seats this time—the lowest in many decades—he said, “I hope the people would vote for the DMK so as to continue single-party rule in the state. But if by chance, voting pattern changes and there is compulsion that the government can be formed only through a coalition, I will discuss with the other (alliance) parties and take a decision.”
Political changes like whether one party would rule or a coalition would be formed “can be told only after the elections are over,” Karunanidhi told a TV channel. Insisting that he had ‘nothing to do’ with Kalaignar TV, which had figured in the spectrum scam, excepting lending his name to the channel, he admitted that his wife Dayalu Ammal had 60 per cent stake and daughter Kanimozhi owned 20 per cent of the channel. He also argued that there was no scam at all as the channel had only borrowed some money and repaid it with interest. It even had Income Tax papers to account for the money.