Alagiri’s disappearance from the poll scene has left many of his supporters in southern Tamil Nadu in a fix.
From Alagiri album: with family on Pongal.On May 7, as DMK leader M K Stalin addressed a massive rally in Madurai, his elder brother M K Alagiri sat in deep sulk at his palatial bungalow on the outskirts of the town. “I have no opinion,” he says of the election in which his father is contesting for the 13th time. And then for good measure: “I will not vote for any party this time.”
While the patriarch, M Karunanidhi, has made it clear that he will be chief minister should the DMK come to power — “If he (Stalin) has to get a chance, nature has to do something to me,” he said on Tuesday — there’s no doubt that the 63-year-old Stalin is the chosen one. Alagiri knows this better than anyone else, but has never been able to come to terms with his younger brother’s rise in the party.
Karunanidhi had seen this coming long ago and so, in 1980, he sent Alagiri to Madurai, ostensibly to look after the party and to run Murasoli, the DMK mouthpiece. For 36 years, he lorded over the district.
Now, with his brother running a high-voltage campaign, Alagiri says he has no stake in it.
