Tamil Nadu government has declared a week-long mourning over the death of DMK patriarch M Karunandhi. The state government has declared a public holiday on Wednesday. M. Karunanidhi passed away on Tuesday at the age of 94.
Banks will also remain closed tomorrow, however, they will be working for rest of the week.
The five time chief minister of Tamil Nadu who dominated the state's politics breathed his last at Kauvery hospital in Chennai this evening.
He died at 6.10 PM. "Despite the best possible efforts by our team of doctors and nurses to resuscitate him, he failed to respond," the hospital said in a statement.
"We profoundly mourn the loss of one of the tallest leaders of India and we share the grief of family members and fellow Tamilians worldwide," a press release by Dr Aravindan Selvaraj, Executive Director of Kauvery Hospital, said.
The veteran of Dravidian politics was shifted to the hospital on July 28 from his Gopalapuram residence following a dip in his blood pressure and he was under treatment in the Intensive Care Unit ever since.
Karunanidhi was the last of the grass-roots politicians of Tamil Nadu. He began his public life working under social reformer Periyar EV Ramasamy, but cast his lot with CN Annadurai when he founded the DMK in 1948. Since then, he has never looked back, though his six-decade-long political stint was full of thorns.
Known for his shrewdness and manoeuvring abilities, Karunanidhi became Chief Minister for the first time on February 10, 1967, after the death of Annadurai. Karunanidhi’s close friend MG Ramachandran’s enormous resources helped to tilt the race to chief minister’s chair in his favour while DMK seniors like VR Nedunchezhian were forced to give way.
Born in the backward Isai Vellala community in the obscure village of Thirukuvalai in Thanjavur district to Muthuvel and Anjugam on June 3, 1924, he has climbed up a difficult ladder to rise as one of the towering personalities in Indian politics.
Karunanidhi, a school dropout, began his political life at the age of 14 when he started a handwritten newspaper called Manavar Nesan. He then founded Tamil Nadu Tamil Manavar Mandram which was the first student movement of the Dravidian movement.
