Daijiworld Media Network

Coimbatore, Jul 24: Dogged by succession issues and annoyed with the supporters of his son M K Stalin, DMK chief M K Karunanidhi on Saturday July 23 said that he was ready to quit for the sake of the party's future.

Speaking at the crucial two-day conference convened by the party, he expressed his ire at Stalin's supporters alleging them of trying to create a rift between him and his son.

Stalin's supporters have been rooting for Stalin's elevation in the party over his brother Alagiri, who had earlier threatened to boycott the meeting but changed his mind and arrived in Coimbatore on Saturday.

This is the first major DMK meeting after its loss in the last Assembly elections in April this year. The meeting was attended by about 350 DMK members, including Kurunanidhi's wife Rajathi Ammal, Alagiri, Stalin and Dayanidhi Maran.

The DMK leaders and members discussed issues like reasons for the party's defeat in the polls and its ties with Congress, with some of them demanding a severing of the alliance. Karunanidhi said that the party was itself to blame for its poor show and urged the members to begin from square one and rebuild the party from scratch. The issue of succession was not in the party's agenda at the meeting, but it was raised by Stalin's supporters in their speeches and that's when the trouble began.

The issue snowballed into a war of words between supporters of Stalin and of Karunanidhi, with some of them threatening to resign if Karunanidhi quits, till finally Karunanidhi walked off in a huff.

The meeting went on for nearly four hours. The issue of DMK-Congress alliance is likely to be discussed on the second day of the conference.