Karti Chidambaram questions State Party Chief Elangovan’s power to issue show cause notice

NEW DELHI: The kerfuffle brewing in the Tamil Nadu unit of the Congress took a fresh turn with Karti Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram questioning the right of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) chief EVKS Elangovan to issue a show cause notice against him for anti party activities.

In a reply to a notice served on him by Elangovan for hosting a meet of representatives from all 234 Assembly constituencies, whimsically termed G 67, or generation born after 1967 (the last time there was a Congress government in the state), Karti Chidamabaram said that only the AICC’s disciplinary committee had the right to serve a notice to him. “On the day the G67 meeting happened, I have not used the symbol or flag of the Indian National Congress. I did not invite the media to the programme.

Thus you could not have got to know of what I spoke at that event through the media. If you had understood what I had spoken completely, you will understand that I had not criticised the party's leadership or policies, there is no basis for you to ask a clarification or for me to give an explanation. I am an All India Congress Committee member. Only AICC's disciplinary committee has the powers to seek an explanation or take disciplinary action again me,” he says in his reply. Speaking to ET, Karti clarified that his purpose in holding the meeting was to “try and find a new agenda for the party, hardly for anti-party activities.”

“I firmly believe that things can’t go on as before, if the Congress has to be in the reckoning in the state we have to change the issues we are talking of and the way we talk about them. Secularism as an issue is fine for opposing the BJP at the Centre, here the two Dravidian parties set different agenda, we have to have a competing yet relatable agenda indigenous to the state,” he said.

He added that his speech on the day was about taking two specific issues to the people, the one of changing the culture of electoral freebies and the rampant spread of alcoholism through state run TASMAC shops which funded these freebies.