New Delhi:
His birthday was usually the perfect platform for his party to prove its political strength. But today, as M Karunanidhi, the head of the DMK, turns 88, there's little of the traditional pomp and glory. A trip to Delhi to visit his daughter in jail was cancelled late last night. Instead, Mr Karunanidhi delivered a message that suggests a growing rift with his political partner, the Congress. "Bad friendship ends in trouble," he said.
Karunanidhi had issued a statement last night, saying he was "not in the frame of mind" to participate in any event other than the planned wreath laying ceremony at memorials of Anna (former Chief Minister Annadurai) and Periyar (rationalist leader E V Ramasamy) on his 88th birthday.
He had also requested his partymen "not to compel him to meet them" and tendered apologies as he will not be able to meet them both in his house and at the party headquarters.
Mr Karunanidhi was rejected unequivocally last month in the Tamil Nadu elections, ending plans to return as Chief Minister. The DMK, which contested the elections with the Congress, was decimated with one of its worst-ever performances; its First Family finds itself mired in controversy over chronic corruption.
(In Pics: The rise and fall of Karunanidhi)Perhaps the biggest blow for the former Chief Minister is that his daughter, Kanimozhi, is now in Tihar Jail in Delhi for allegedly accepting a bribe in the gigantic telecom scam that was reportedly engineered by A Raja, a Dalit leader of the DMK known for his proximity to Mr Karunanidhi's family.
Mr Raja is in jail as well. The 2G scam -which saw him selling spectrum and mobile network licenses at throwaway prices in 2008 while he was Telecom Minister - has turned into a political inferno for both the DMK and the union government at the Centre, where the DMK has so far served as a partner with considerable muscle in the form of 18 MPs.
The DMK has expressed its resentment over the fact that the media was fed information about the charges against Kanimozhi before she was formally presented with the details in court. The 2G scam is being investigated by the CBI, which according to the DMK, turned multiple sessions of questioning with Kanimozhi into unnecessarily high-profile events.
Bitter about his daughter's incarceration, an ailing Karunanidhi visited Kanimozhi in jail last month. Father and daughter wept together. But for the first time in seven years, Mr Karunanidhi left Delhi without meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi and later said it would have been inappropriate to do so while his daughter was in jail.
Despite these public jibes, both the DMK and the Congress have maintained that their alliance stands strong for now. But the fact that Congress President Sonia Gandhi phoned Mr Karunanidhi's arch political rival, Jayalalithaa, after she swept the elections in the state, was interpreted as a sign of a heightened tension between the two parties.