Coimbatore: The two-day meeting of DMK`s top decision making body beginning here on Saturday is expected to give a new direction to the party amidst criticism over the first family`s domination and its strained relationship with Congress.
Party patriarch M Karunanidhi is reluctant to continue the seven-year old alliance with the Congress as he was reportedly sore that enough had not been done to bail out his daughter Kanimozhi, languishing in Tihar jail in the 2G spectrum scam.
However, his sons M K Stalin and M K Alagiri favoured status-quo to be maintained, apparently apprehensive that breaking ties with Congress would spell further trouble for the party smarting under the worst debacle in the Assembly polls at the hands of arch-rival AIADMK.
The General Council, meeting for the first time after the polls that saw the party relegated to the third place behind actor-politician Vijaykant`s DMDK, would also discuss whether to accept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s offer of two Cabinet berths as replacements for A Raja and Dayananidhi Maran, who quit over the 2G spectrum scam.
Ahead of the recent Union Cabinet reshuffle, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had met Karunanidhi and conveyed the Prime Minister`s offer, but the DMK chief had turned it down, saying the issue would be decided after the General Council meeting.
Seeking to revamp the party set up, DMK high command had recently indicated it wanted a change in the district-level set up when it asked the General Council members to give their views on replacing the powerful district secretaries with Lok Sabha constituency level conveners, a move strongly opposed by a section of senior leaders.
PTI
