Karunanidhi disapproves of attack on BJP office

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Monday said that he disapproved of the attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party state headquarters by DMK volunteers on Sunday.

"I do not accept it. It is wrong," he said after a meeting of DMK and its allies on the Sethusamduram Canal Project.

Asked about the resolution adopted at the BJP national executive stating that those who did not know about Lord Ram and the Ramayana should not rule the country, he said "I support the resolution since they (BJP) do not know about Ram and Valmiki's Ramayana."

Speaking about the Centre's action on the project, Karunanidhi said, "I am not disappointed. At the same time, I am not satisfied".

On union minister T R Baalu's assertion that no alternative alignment for the project was possible, Karunanidhi said "Baalu knows more than me since he is the one executing the project".

Asked whether he was confident that he could win an election if BJP used the Ram sethu issue, the DMK leader said, "You know what happened to Ram during the 1971 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu (when Dravida Kazhagam opposed Ram and parties opposing DMK had made it their poll plank)."

"In that election, DMK won 184 assembly seats, the highest by any party in assembly elections in Tamil Nadu," he said, adding that the DMK had the experience of defeating such sentiments before and it was not afraid of such a campaign.

On BJP state President L Ganesan's remark that the party would begin an ideological war against the DMK, he said, "with their strength in the state, they can at best dig a bore (well) and not start a pore (war).'

Responding to a query about Vendanti's statement that his remarks had been twisted out of context, Karunanidhi said the BJP leader was blaming the Bhagwad Gita now.

Asked about former Union Minister Uma Bharti's opposition to the Sethusamudram project, he pointed out that she was a Central minister when the project was sanctioned.

To a query on whether BJP represented the Hindus, he shot back, "If they claim so, they are belittling Hinduism. When BJP sanctioned the project with the present alignment, did they not know about the existence of Ram sethu?"