Ruling party leaders visit Kauvery hospital

“We were told that he (Karunanidhi) is well and that is a happy news,” Thambidurai, who is also the Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker, said. Flanked by state Fisheries Minister Jayakumar, he said they spoke to DMK functionaries, former Ministers, MLAs, Karunanidhi’s wife Rajathi Ammal and his daughter Kanimozhi. 

Quoting the DMK functionaries and family, Thambidurai said the DMK chief was getting well. “We conveyed our wishes for his speedy recovery and for him to return home soon,” he told reporters here. He said they visited the hospital on behalf of the AIADMK and “Chinnamma (Sasikala) who is set to lead us.”  

The visit assumes significance as neither former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa nor any AIADMK leader has in the past about two decades ever visited Karunanidhi or other leaders of his party. Both AIADMK and DMK leaders have not greeted each other in public functions either in recent history. 

Even during Karunanidhi’s previous spell of hospitalisation early this month or in 2009 no AIADMK leader visited or enquired about his health, an indication of the bitterness between the ruling party and arch rival DMK. 

DMK Treasurer Stalin visited Apollo Hospitals twice during Jayalalithaa’s recent prolonged hospitalisation and he also led a battery of his party MLAs and placed a wreath on the her body at Rajaji Hall here. 

When MGR was Chief Minister between 1977 and 1987, the bitterness between his party and the DMK was however not so intense.