A path of gloom has descended in Tamil Nadu as their beloved Kalaignar, Muthuvel Karunanidhi passed away today (7 August 2018) at the Kauvery hospital in Chennai. He was 94 years of age.
The five time Chief Minister was admitted to the hospital following a dip in his blood pressure last month and he was under treatment in the ICU ever since.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Mamta Banerjee, K Chandrashekar Rao and Pinarayi Vijayan are some of the top leaders to be present to pay their respects tomorrow.
Karunanidhi was a gigantic political figure in Tamil Nadu who also played a huge role in National politics. Kalaingar, 13 times MLA, never lost an election in his career spanning 60 years. He wasn’t just a politician but a hugely successful script writer.
Timeline :
1924 – Born on 3 June 1924 in Thirukkuvalai, Thanjavur district ( now Nagapattinam )
1949 – Joins DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) founded by Dravidian ideologue CN Annadurai.
1952 – Scripts ‘Parasakthi’ that is the first film to propagate ideas of Dravidian movement.
1953 – Led the famous “Kallakudi agitation” against renaming of the town as Dalmiapuram, lying over railway tracks, was jailed for 3 months.
1957 – Elected for first time to Tamil Nadu assembly from Kulithalai and has never lost an election since.
1969 – Becomes the Chief Minister of the state following the death of C N Annadurai due to cancer.
1972 – Expells MGR (Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran) huge film personality from DMK who went on to form another political party – AIADMK (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) who went on be his life long rival in Tamil Nadu politics.
1976 – Indira Gandhi dismissed the government on the charges of corruption and AIADMK came into power in 1977 and Karunanidhi had to sit in the opposition for the next 13 years.
1989 – DMK returns to power following MGR’s death but in 1991, the centre dismissed the government over it’s alleged closeness to LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) who assassinated Rajiv Gandhi and an alliance of AIADMK-Congress comes to power.
1996 – It was Jayalalithaa facing corruption charges this time around and the DMK returned to power. Since then, the two parties have ruled every alternate term. Except in 2016, when Jayalalithaa was elected for a historic second straight term.
2001– Arrested over corruption charges by Jayalalithaa led AIADMK along with his son MK Stalin.
2004 – DMK-led alliance wins 40 seats in Lok Sabha polls, gets 7 Union minister posts in the UPA government.
2006 – Became the Chief Minister for the fifth time.
2017 – Completed 60 years as a legistalor.