It was the parent in him, and not the politician, that came to the fore, as Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi reacted with barely contained emotion to the news of his daughter and Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi's incarceration.
“If you have a daughter, and if she is punished for a crime she did not commit, you know how much you will suffer. I am in such a state,” the octogenarian leader told journalists who sought his reaction to the rejection of Ms. Kanimozhi's bail petition by a CBI Special Court in New Delhi.
“We have good relations with everybody,” Mr. Karunanidhi said, when asked about his party's ties with the Congress.
Refusing to comment on the court's order on the ground that it was an issue related to the court, Mr. Karunanidhi said he would consult legal experts before any appeal was filed in the Delhi High Court. “You will come to know about the decision.”
Asked whether he had any plan to visit New Delhi, where Ms. Kanimozhi is lodged in the Tihar Jail, he said he was not going to Delhi for now.
To a query whether Ms. Kanimozhi's arrest would affect the alliance with the Congress and what was his and the party's decision, he said: “The DMK is a democratic party. I can't take decisions on my own. The party's executive committee and general body alone can take decisions.”
“When it is necessary,” was his reply to a question on when he would convene the party's executive or general body meeting.
On the Assembly election outcome, Mr. Karunanidhi said he had said, soon after the results were out, that the people had given him rest. “Now, it will be better if you can give me some rest.”
There was an air of despondency at his CIT Colony residence, as Mr. Karunanidhi, whose party was decimated in the Assembly elections.
Earlier, his son M.K. Stalin and some senior leaders rushed there soon after news broke that the court had rejected the bail plea of Ms. Kanimozhi. Mr. Karunanidhi was following the developments on television. Ms. Kanimozhi's mother Rajathi Ammal left for New Delhi by an evening flight, sources said.
