In a veiled attack on the Congress, DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, in his birthday message to the party cadre, said, “Bad company will lead to disaster (Koodaa natpu kedaai mudiyum)”.
Viewed against the backdrop of his statement about a fortnight ago that the Congress had caused the DMK rout in the state Assembly poll by squeezing out 63 seats and then losing most of them to help rival AIADMK, his “bad company” label on Friday may be interpreted as sowing the seed for snapping ties with the Congress.
Without elaborating who the bad company was, Mr Karunanidhi told the DMK cadre not to forget the golden rule while progressing in their journey. The DMK chief is upset that the ally did not help when his daughter Kanimozhi was jailed in the 2G scam. Agonised by the arrest of Ms Kanimozhi, Mr Karunanidhi had called off the birthday celebration, his 88th, saying he was not in the mood to celebrate his birthday. After visiting the memorials of Periyar and Anna, Mr Karunanidhi went to a resort owned by one of his relatives in Neelankarai.