Post-Karunanidhi DMK : Alagiri dares brother Stalin, says party leaders are with him

Speaking to reporters at his father’s memorial at Marina Beach in Chennai, Alagiri said, "I expressed my pain to my father. I can't say what it is now. All the true and loyal supporters of Thalaivar, Kalaignar are with me, they are supporting me. Only time will give a befitting reply."

Alagiri said he is upset with the party and not the family.

The development comes a day ahead of a key meeting of the DMK,

Alagiri, 67, has been out of the party for the past four years after being expelled  for advocating a tie-up with the BJP-led NDA.

Before that he once was  considered a party strongman . He won the 2009 LS elections from the city and was Chemical and Fertilizer Minister in Manmohan Singh government.

But Alagiri was slowly marginalised in the party and Karunanidhi picked up Stalin as working president and political heir. In the absence of Karunanidhi, Stalin is likely to become the party President.

The two brothers have been at loggerheads since Karunanidhi named Stalin as his successor.

For decades Tamil Nadu politics was dominated by Karunanidhi and K Jayalalithaa, respectively heading DMK and AIADMK with only these two parties coming to power, denying space to national parties like the Congress or the BJP.

However, after Jayalalithaa's death in December, 2016, the ruling AIADMK was thrown into a vortex of intra-party squabbling over succession threatening a split in the organisation. However, two of the three warring factions finally came to a rapprochement to stay in power.

While Jayalalithaa left no such kin to take the party's command and the succession war raged only within her so called loyalists, Karunanidhi's death leaves both the party and the family exposed to the risk f being affected by a succession feud.