Navin Chawla arranged Sonia-Jaya meet: Karuna

In a significant development that comes in the backdrop of AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa’s hint at an alliance with the Congress, the DMK on Wednesday slammed Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla for facilitating former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Launching a scathing attack on the CEC, DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said Chawla acted in a ‘partisan’ manner and favoured the AIADMK by repeatedly postponing a crucial bypoll in Tamil Nadu.

The Chief Minister whole-heartedly endorsed the allegations made by PMK chief Ramadoss against Chawla on the issue. Karunanidhi’s controversial remarks appeared on Wednesday in the editorial of the party organ Murasoli.

“I would like to quote the statement issued by Ramadoss, the founder president of PMK, which is one of the parties willing to contest the byelection to Pennagaram Assembly constituency: On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Election Commission, Navin Chawla facilitated the meeting of Jayalalithaa and Sonia Gandhi by seating Jayalalithaa in the room attached to the podium till the arrival of Sonia Gandhi in the room. When comparing this act of Navin Chawla with his action of postponing the byelection to Pennagaram, yielding to the wishes of Jayalalithaa, it is clear that the Election Commission cannot give a clean chit to itself from the allegation that it is not treating all the parties impartially. The Election Commission’s act is one-sided and is condemnable.”

Karunanidhi further wrote: “From the above statement of Ramadoss, everyone will agree that how much it will be painful to know that the people who have to act impartially do not act so. It is like saying: The fence of the land starts eating into the crop.”

The one-on-one meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Jayalalithaa, which lasted more than 10 minutes on January 25 at the VIP lounge of the Vigyan Bhavan, was the cause for the DMK anger.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister also said the CEC had favoured the AIADMK by twice postponing the byelection in Pennagaram Assembly seat.

Karunanidhi criticised the Election Commission for taking cognisance of a complaint from various small parties which were not contesting the election that thousands of names had been removed from the electoral rolls. “After the date was fixed and nominations were filed, the EC had postponed the poll second time, without even bothering to consult officials who had prepared the rolls on whether the charge is true,” said Karunanidhi.