Tamil Nadu got its first-ever Deputy CM

THIS was an eventful year with much political activity over the Sri Lankan Tamils issue and the byelections, besides inter-State water disputes concerning Mullaiperiyar and the Cauvery.
One of the major developments was that the State got its first deputy chief minister in M K Stalin.
At the fag end of the year, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi created ripples by announcing that he would retire from politics after the World Classical Tamil Conference gets over in June, 2010.
Karunanidhi’s ‘statue diplomacy’ with Karnataka heralded a new era in inter-state relationship as both were locked in the vexed Hogenakkal and Cauvery water disputes.
Karunanidhi and his Karnataka counterpart B S Yeddyurappa unveiled statues of saint-poets Tiruvalluvar and Sarvajna in Bangalore and Chennai, respectively.
The first half of the year was dominated by the turmoil of Sri Lankan Tamils and a spate of suicides demanding steps for saving the Lankan Tamils. The issue slowly subsided after LTTE chief V Prabhakaran was killed by the Lankan Army.
Political parties vied with each other in taking up the cause of the Lankan Tamils. The DMK chief had to call a dawn-to-dusk general strike urging the Centre to take immediate steps to stop the war in Lanka. Later, he went on a fast at Anna memorial for the same cause but ended it after an announcement by Union Minister P Chidambaram.
AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa , changing her stance on the issue, during the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, promised to work fo r forming a separate Tamil Eelam if the party got a decisive mandate.
The CM sought permanent citizenship for the Tamil refugees living in 115 camps in State and announced Rs 100 crore for improving the infrastructure of the camps.
A delegation of MPs from Tamil Nadu sans the opposition parties paid a visit to the camps of the displaced Tamils in Sri Lanka. During the visit, Lankan President Rajapaksa agreed to send back around 58,000 Tamils to their native places in a phased manner.
Recently, the DMK chief charged that the decisions taken by the LTTE at crucial junctures of their struggle lacked political vision and that the Tigers’ call for boycotting the 2005 presidential polls in Sri Lanka led to the present crisis.