The DMK on Tuesday held a meeting of its executive committee to condole the death of party president M Karunanidhi. 300 members participated in the meeting. The meeting began at 10 am at the party headquarters, Anna Arivalayam, in Chennai.

The meeting's agenda was to condole the death of Karunanidhi. However, speculations were that party chief will also be decided in this meeting as, on Monday, MK Alagiri, the eldest son of Karunanidhi revolted and indicated towards splitting DMK.

There was a rumble in DMK as Alagiri claimed to have the support of loyalists of his father. In 2014, Karunanidhi had expelled Alagiri.

Alagiri said, “I have come here to express my anguish to my father. You will not know what it is about now. The real loyalists of my leader Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) are with me. The loyalists across the state are supporting me. Time will provide an answer.” 

Karunanidhi’s younger son, MK Stalin led the party meeting and paid rich tributes to his father. Speaking for the first time since his father's funeral, he said, “Party has lost our leader but I have lost the leader as well as my father.”

Last week, there was a feud between ruling AIADMK and DMK for allotting a burial place to Karunanidhi at Marina near Anna memorial.

Stalin was emotional at the party's emergency meeting. He said,” When Kalaignar was in his last stage I held CM's hands & pleaded to fulfill his (Karunanidhi) last wish to be buried in Marina Beach but govt didn't agree.”

But finally, Madras High Court ruled in DMK’s favour.

Stalin said, “I give the entire credit of the victory to lawyers. If this wouldn't have happened then surely I would have been the person to be buried along with our leader.”

Earlier, Stalin was made the party’s working president. However, in this Alagiri vs Stalin war, no final call was taken on the party’s future.

With inputs from ANI