By IANS
New Delhi/Chennai : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi announced Sunday that he would fast Monday with his cabinet ministers, after the Supreme Court stayed a strike called by his DMK party to speed up work on the Sethusamudram shipping canal project in the sea dividing India and Sri Lanka.
Stunned by the judicial intervention, which followed a three-hour hearing in New Delhi of a petition filed by the AIADMK challenging the DMK-sponsored bandh Monday, Karunanidhi said he would stage the hunger strike at Triplicane, in the very heart of Chennai.
DMK sources said the chief minister, one of the country’s most experienced politicians, would begin the fast at 8 a.m. along with senior cabinet colleagues as well as DMK leaders. The hunger strike is expected to end at 6 p.m.
Speaking to Tamil journalists on his return to Chennai from Tiruchinapalli, Karunanidhi said: “There are some Nandis (hurdles) before the Sethu project. The union government should ensure that the project is implemented. That is why we are going on a day long protest fast.”
The chief minister added that DMK’s allies would take part in the fast in Chennai and also in all major towns in Tamil Nadu’s 30 districts. But it was not clear if the Congress party would throw its lot with Karunanidhi.
His decision came after a special bench of the apex court, headed by Justice B.N. Agarwal, stayed the DMK-sponsored state-wide shutdown that had been called Monday and which was expected to paralyse life in the sprawling state.
The strike had been called to urge the central government to get the Supreme Court to vacate its stay on the construction of the Sethusamudram project.
The Supreme Court asked the DMK-led government in Tamil Nadu to desist from resorting to the shutdown and pulled it up for indulging in “illegal activities”.
The bench said the apex court had already ruled that strikes and bandhs were illegal and warned the Tamil Nadu government against going ahead with the strike.
“We cannot tolerate this type of conduct from political parties, more so, when it is the ruling one,” the court said. “The public’s right to have a normal life is far superior than those of individual political parties’ rights.”
A division bench of the Madras High Court had Friday allowed the bandh, advising the state government to order top officials to ensure that no parties or groups stopped or interfered with road and rail traffic as well as the free movement of citizens.
The AIADMK, which has come out publicly against the canal, Saturday approached the Supreme Court to stop the strike.
The canal project has become deeply divisive after the central government hurriedly withdrew an affidavit from the Supreme Court that questioned the very existence of Hindu god Ram.
The affidavit was meant to justify the project, some of whose critics allege that the canal would damage a so-called bridge built during the Ramayana era to help Ram cross over into Lanka.
A furious Karunanidhi then came out with hard-hitting comments criticising Ram, angering Hindu groups that wanted the canal project to be axed or have a different alignment.
The Tamil Nadu chief minister is determined that the canal should come up. The government says the project will cost less time and money for movement of ships between the west and east coasts of India.