New Delhi : After forcing the DMK’s hand and getting A Raja to step down as telecom minister, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi are likely to attend the wedding reception of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s grandson, Dhayanidhi Alagiri, in Madurai on November 18. The move is being seen as an attempt to soothe and reaffirm ties with the southern partner.
Congress sources on Monday said both Sonia and Singh were scheduled to travel to Tamil Nadu to attend the ceremony on Thursday. Dhayanidhi is the son of Union Chemical and Fertilisers Minister M Alagiri. Accompanied by DMK leaders T R Baalu, Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran and Tamil Nadu Deputy CM MK Stalin, Alagiri had handed personal invites to the two last month.
The trip assumes importance as it will provide an opportunity to the Congress leadership to remove misperceptions as a fallout of Raja's resignation.
Significantly, the indication that the two leaders would meet Karunanidhi this week came even as Singh today opted to hand over additional charge of the Telecom Ministry to HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, instead of letting another DMK nominee in the Union Cabinet take charge. Sibal now has Science and Technology as well as Telecom to look after besides HRD.
However, Congress sources said not much should be read into the decision, asserting that the move was a temporary arrangement till the next reshuffle of the Union Cabinet, which could take some time.
The Congress, in fact, sought to put an end to the matter of Raja's resignation by refusing to entertain questions on it. "There is a probe process on. The CAG report has to be tabled in Parliament. Let the process be complete," party spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters. He added that Raja had already responded on why he had taken the decision to step down.
Meanwhile, the DMK, which did not appear to have been informed about the move to shift the Telecom portfolio to the Congress kitty for now, did not seem to take exception. Suggesting that it could be a "stop gap arrangement", the DMK parliamentary party leader, TR Baalu, was quoted by PTI as saying: "No one has any say on the issue except the Prime Minister. As such, our leader (M Karunanidhi) has not given any name to succeed Raja to the Prime Minister".
http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4583494&page=0
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