Modi in Chennai today, will meet Karunanidhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be meeting Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M Karunanidhi in Chennai today, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the DMK said.

Modi is in this city today to attend the platinum jubilee function of a vernacular daily.

'During his visit to Tamil Nadu today, PM Sh Narendra Modiji will visit senior-most leader from the state and former CM M Karunanidhi,' BJP national general secretary P Mualidhar Rao said in a tweet.

DMK sources also confirmed the meet, saying the two leaders are scheduled to meet at 12.30 pm at Karunanidhi's Gopalapuram residence.

The prime minister will also attend the wedding of the daughter of Dr T V Somanathan, a senior official in the PMO, at Raja Annamalaipuram.

Karunanidhi fell ill in October, 2016 due to a drug-induced allergy.

In December last, he was admitted to the Kauvery Hospital in Chennai twice.

The veteran leader was admitted to the hospital for 'optimisation of nutrition and hydration' in the first week of December and later, due to a throat and lung infection.

He had undergone tracheostomy, a procedure to optimise breathing.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had called on the DMK patriarch at his residence in December, 2016.

The nonagenarian leader had made his first public appearance on October 19 this year, the first since his illness, when he visited an exhibition here held to showcase the 75-year journey of DMK's mouthpiece Murasoli.  -- PTI

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi being welcomed in Chennai on Monday. Photograph: ANI