By IANS
Chennai : With thin attendance in schools and offices and fewer-than-usual buses on the roads here, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi began a daylong fast with several cabinet colleagues Monday to demand the completion of the Sethusamudram shipping canal.
The DMK fast formally began outside the Government Guest House in Chepauk in Chennai at 8 a.m., a day after the Supreme Court restrained the ruling coalition from going ahead with a shutdown on the issue.
“Communal forces are attempting to stop the Sethu project with an eye to elections,” the chief minister said as he began his protest. Left and PMK leaders and PMK leaders are also sitting beside him.
Though schools and government offices were open here, attendance was thin. Public transport was plying too, but with fewer buses on the roads. However, reports from various parts of the state said buses were completely off the roads.
Unaware that the Supreme Court had said no to the shutdown called by the DMK, massive crowds thronged the railway stations as people prepared to go out of town to take advantage of two successive holidays (Oct 1 and 2).
As news came in Sunday of the Supreme Court staying the protest shutdown on a plea by the opposition AIADMK, the 83-year-old chief minister announced his decision to sit on a fast along with other leaders of his Progressive Democratic Alliance.
He was Sunday night urged by coalition partners not to undertake the fast.
“I will decide later on how long to fast,” Karunanidhi told PMK leader S. Ramadoss.
Addressing a public meeting late Sunday night in Mylapore, in the heartland of the city, Karunanidhi said he would not rest until “religious fanaticism is defeated by the coalition in Tamil Nadu and the Sethu project is implemented”.
He asked the Tamil people to join the fast to press for the Sethusamudram canal.