MP Karti Chidambaram’s loaded tweets against DMK continue

CHENNAI: Congress MP from Sivagangai, Karti Chidambaram appears to be on a mission to get on the nerves of ally DMK. Karti has posted a series of tweets ‘critical’ of the DMK on various issues this weekend. A day after criticising his Parliamentary colleague Dr Senthilkumar of DMK for stopping Hindu rituals at a government function in his Dharmapuri constituency, Karti has posted a video of DMK bigwigs, including Chief Minister M K Stalin ‘participating’ in Hindu rituals at government functions.

Senthilkumar had pulled up PWD engineers in Dharmapuri on Saturday for engaging a Hindu priest at the government function. In a video posted by him on Twitter, Senthilkumar was seen clarifying to officials that the government was run on Dravidian model, which accommodates all. “Why only a Hindu priest? Why a parishioner or Imam or non-believers are not to be seen at the function?” Senthilkumar quipped.

Responding to the video, Karti tweeted, “Totally unwanted outburst. Tell me one wedding/housewarming/oath taking ceremony of members of your party which has occurred without reference to ‘auspicious’ times/ceremony? Dravidian extremes erroneously think that because people vote for them they negate all forms of rituals.” He followed it with the video which was “offered without any further comments.”

As if the message were not enough, Chidambaram junior, in a message posted about the Kallakurichi violence Sunday afternoon, said, “The district administration has failed to maintain law and order.”

Even before the DMK sympathizers recovered from the social media shock, Karti tweeted, “I still prefer Madras,” a loaded reactionary message posted to a tweet about renaming the state capital as Chennai by the DMK government in 1996.

Understandably, the DMK let its irritation be known to the Congress MP. DMK environment secretary Karthikeya Sivasenapathy hit back, “You will have to understand the basic difference between a private function or event and a government function. The one opposed by Dr Senthil MP is a government function paid from taxpayer’s money. A taxpayer may be a Hindu or Muslim or a Christian or an atheist.”

“Why should the state conduct rituals of Aryan Brahminical fold? We have no issues when it’s done the Tamil Nadu way. Generally, land breaking ceremony or palakal is done by the person who is going to build and no Brahmin has a role in it. Why introduce all this now?” Sivasenapathy added. The rest of the DMK Twitterati joined the issue and questioned Karti’s ‘selective’ silence on a few issues, after recalling his father’s most recent nomination to the Rajya Sabha with DMK support.