Nitin Gadkari to attend Karunanidhi's memorial meet on DMK's invite, talk of political re-alignment rife

As Nitin Gadkari is all set to represent the BJP at the memorial meet in Chennai for late DMK supremo M Karunanidhi on Thursday, political murmurs about DMK warming up to the Centre have started again.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with DMK chief M Karunanidhi. Twitter/@narendramodi

The BJP on Monday had said that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and its national secretary Muralidhar Rao would represent the party at the memorial meeting, setting at rest speculation over its president Amit Shah's participation at the event. A section of the media had reported that Shah had accepted the DMK invite, setting off speculations of political re-alignments ahead of Lok Sabha 2019 polls.

The invite to BJP came as a suprise for many especially after the new DMK chief MK Stalin was categorically critical of Narendra Modi in his coronation speech. Stalin had said that the BJP is polarising the country on religious lines and urged DMK workers to throw out the Narendra Modi government out of power in 2019.

Earlier too, DMK has been highly critical of the BJP on various issues, including Cauvery and NEET. It had even protested the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April to Tamil Nadu, in the backdrop of the Cauvery issue. Black flags were hoisted atop the residences of Karunanidhi, Stalin, Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi and other leaders in protest against Modi's visit and for not forming the Cauvery Management Board (CMB) then.

Apart from Gadkari, former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, Ghulam Nabi Azad of Congress, chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, N Chandrababu Naidu and Nitish Kumar respectively, their Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal and CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury are among those likely to attend the event.

With inputs from PTI