CONGRESS SLAMMED TAMIL NADU CHIEF MINISTER M KARUNANIDHI FOR MOURNING SLAIN LTTE LEADER SP TAMILCHELVAN - NEWS HEADLINES STORY
NEW DELHI, INDIA NEWS HEADLINES: - The Congress on Monday slammed Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi for "mourning" slain LTTE leader S.P. Thamilchelvan and reminded him that LTTE was an organisation banned in the country. Karunanidhi has also invited criticism from arch rival AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha for penning a poem on the slain Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader, praising his courage and mental strength. However, the Congress leaders have not taken to it kindly, though the DMK is an important constituent of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by the Congress.
"The Congress disapproves Chief Minister Karunanidhi's mourning the death of the LTTE leader Thamilchelvan," party spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told reporters on Monday. Justifying his stance, DMK chief Karunanidhi has said that the LTTE leader was a Tamil. "As Tamil blood is running in my body also, I expressed my condolence," he wrote in the DMK mouthpiece Murasoli. "We cannot forget the action perpetrated by the LTTE that killed our great leader (former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi," Natarajan said. LTTE militants assassinated Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. "We will not support eulogising terrorism in any form," said Natarajan, who was also present in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu on May 21, 1991, when Gandhi was killed during an election campaign.
