Chennai: “I feel no shame now in admitting that I pleaded repeatedly, even holding the hand of the Chief Minister, to give us the burial space at Marina. It was all for fulfilling our leader’s last wish that he be laid to rest beside his mentor Anna. Despite all the pleading, they (CM) gave no commitment and finally, just to make us leaver, told us, ‘we will see’”.
That was MK Stalin opening up before the full-house gathering of the DMK executive at the party headquarters on Tuesday for passing the condolence resolution for Karunanidhi who passed away on August 7 and was laid to rest next to Anna’s memorial at the Marina the following day.
Recalling in detail the harrowing time he, the family and the party seniors went through before the DMK’s battery of lawyers led by Wilson got the order from the Madras High Court directing the government to give the Marina site for the burial, Stalin said when the doctors at the hospital informed the family that all their attempts to save Karunanidhi had failed and the final moments were closing in, it was decided that they should meet the CM personally to plead for the Marina burial site.
A first delegation went and came back empty-handed. Then some senior leaders suggested they meet the CM in person as they apparently believed he would relent if they met him.
“I got ready to go but senior leaders said I should not go because I am the son of Kalaignar and I am the party's working president. I said I don't care about my prestige, image or respect. I can lose anything for our leader”, Stalin told the executive, his voice choking.
He said when he, along with the DMK seniors, met the CM at his residence, he told them the site near the Anna memorial could not be given due to legal issues and that the legal opinion sought by the government too had confirmed that. “I told him we too were in government and we knew that legal opinion invariably reflected only the government's thinking. You should please grant this wish, I pleaded with the CM”, Stalin said recalling how his last-ditch mission to the CM to get his father's wish, to be buried next to mentor Anna's memorial, fulfilled.
Shortly after that failed trip to CM's house, the doctors at the hospital declared Karunanidhi dead. The family became desperate not knowing what to do and it was decided to send a letter to the government, which Durai Murugan carried. “He came back within 10 minutes with a negative response”. Then came the news on TV channels that Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan had turned down the Marina request and the government, instead, was allotting two acres of land at Kamaraj Memorial in Guindy. And that was when party lawyers Wilson, Shanmugasundaram and others stepped in and moved swiftly to take the petition to the high court for a midnight hearing.
“You have all lost your leader; I have lost my leader, my father too. I had toured all the districts and addressed several meetings to rejuvenate the party and prepare for the elections so as to place our victory at the feet of our leader; but now I am standing before you in anguish at not being able to fulfill that pledge”, said Stalin.
