NEW DELHI: DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi chose to visit New Delhi on the very day the UPA coalition partners were called for a meeting on the Lokpal Bill. But he not only skipped the meet, he went to visit his daughter in jail, driving home the point-that he has “no time for UPA meetings” and that his life is in too much “turmoil” to bother about “political niceties”.In fact, he kept Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi guessing till the last moment on whether anyone from the DMK would at all attend the meeting.T R Baalu, the DMK parliamentary party leader, finally did attend, but only to disagree with the main point of the government’s draft Bill. Sources said the DMK is of the “firm opinion” that “the PMshould be brought under the Lokpal Bill.What is worse, the DMK leader told the Congress top brass that his party would reveal its full view on the Lokpal Bill on the floor of Parliament-not before. The Congress went into a huddle trying to find ways to appease its sulking ally from the south.Another UPA ally, National Congress patron and Union Minister Farooq Abdullah-who is known to be sympathetic towards his old friend Karunanidhi-indicated that there was “divergence of views” and that his party too “would reveal its stand in Parliament”. However, the two main UPA constituents, TC and NCP, backed the government draft.
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