All those who are born have to die: Stalin on Alagiri's remarks

Making light of M K Alagiri's remarks on his "death", Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Treasurer M K Stalin on Wednesday asked party men not to burn effigies of his "elder brother", saying party discipline was supreme.

"I don't want to take seriously what Alagiri said about me. Neither do I want to make it a big issue. All those who are born have to die one day," he said.

A day after DMK president M Karunanidhi said his elder son Alagiri had stated Stalin will die in three months and that how could he tolerate that as a father, the Chennai-based leader said the party patriarch would have been hurt in the same way even if he had spoken ill about Alagiri.

"That's why he said that rather than being my sons they are party members," Stalin said in a statement in Chennai.

The party's well being was important for Karunanidhi who along with DMK General Secretary K Anbazhagan was taking carefully planned decisions in this regard, he said.

"I regret coming across reports of some party comrades burning effigies of Annan (elder brother) Alagiri. This is unacceptable as it challenges political decency and is an effort at harming the discipline and dignity in the party being followed for long," he said.

 The statement released by DMK headquarters was titled ‘Elder brother Alagiri's effigies should not be burnt’, requests Treasurer Stalin’, and came a day after Karunanidhi's outburst against his elder son prompted party supporters to paste posters against him and burn his effigies in different parts of the state.

Accusing Alagiri of nurturing "unknown hatred" against his younger brother, Karunanidhi had stated that his Madurai-based son had even said Stalin would die in three months.

"No father can tolerate such words against a son. As the party chief, I had to tolerate them," Karunanidhi had said even as the allegations were refuted by Alagiri.

Stalin said he was content over the fact that Karunanidhi had made a "matter-of-fact expression" of what had happened involving Alagiri.

DMK workers committing 'emotional' acts like burning of effigies or pasting of posters would amount to violation of party discipline and would "provide fodder to the media to write all sorts of things about us," he said.

This would also create hatred against the party among people and workers should end the matter and focus on "pro-active activities" for successful conduct of the party's two-day state conference in Tiruchirappalli next month besides facing the coming Lok Sabha polls, he said.