Karunanidhi's birthday wish: Ram Setu project

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi cut an 85-kg cake on his 85th birthday but said the treat he would enjoy most was completion of the Setusamudram Shipping Project.

"My only wish is to see the implementation of the Sethusamudaram project," said Karunanidhi. "Everything I speak and write is about the project. That is my only wish."

Karunanidhi asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who called him on the phone, to rename the Rs 2,287-crore Setusamudram Shipping Project as ‘Setu Ram’ and requested its early completion.

The Sethusamudram project envisages dredging of a ship channel across the Palk straits between India and Sri Lanka. The project will allow ships sailing between the east and west coasts of India to have a shorter passage instead of having to go around Sri Lanka.

Several Hindu groups have opposed the project, saying it would destroy a bridge used by Lord Ram and his army, going by the Indian epic Ramayana.

Marans snubbed

The division in Tamil Nadu’s ruling family showed on Karunanidhi’s birthday too. Karunanidhi’s estranged grandnephews, brothers Kalanidhi Maran and Dayanidhi Maran, came to greet him but he refused to meet them.

Karunanidhi's son M K Azhagiri told PTI the Marans "came to meet my father at my sister Kanimozhi's house and greet him on his birthday but my father refused to meet them. After waiting for more than half an hour, they left".

Dayananidhi resigned as the Union Communication and Information Technology Minister in May 2007 after the DMK demanded his removal from the Cabinet.

Dayananidhi, son of the late Murasoli Maran, nephew of Karunanidhi, resigned days after Dinakaran, a daily owned by his elder brother Kalanidhi, was attacked in Madurai.

The attack was allegedly carried out by DMK workers supporting Azhagiri after the daily carried a survey which claimed that 70 per cent of the people favoured Karunanidhi's younger son M K Stalin as his political heir and only two per cent backed Azhagiri.

Karunanidhi had reportedly cautioned against publication of the survey.