‘‘There will soon be some good news on withdrawal of POTA,” DMK chief Karunanidhi said today while speaking to mediapersons at Anna Arivalayam after returning to the city from New Delhi. He said he would have been happier had the party got a couple of more berths in the Union Cabinet. This, he said, would have enabled representation to the southern districts. The DMK has seven representatives in the Cabinet, including three in the Cabinet rank. None of the seven DMK representatives in the council of ministers hail from the Southern region. But the Central, Northern and Western regions have found representatives. Karunanidhi praised Sonia Gandhi for declining the post of the prime minister and said it was a reflection of her ‘sense of sacrifice’. To a question, Karunanidhi said he was confident that the DMK, with its good strength in the Cabinet, could do a lot for Tamil Nadu. He reiterated that the DMK had no move to press the Centre for invoking Art 356 against the AIADMK regime. Karunanidhi said he would hold discussions with DPA leaders on the steps to be taken to get Cauvery water from Karnataka. He said the DMK had pressed for declaring Tamil a classical language and expediting Sethu Samudhram and linking of rivers projects in the common minimum programme. To a question, he said the DMK had decided to join the Union Cabinet as Sonia Gandhi herself had pressed him to do so. Besides leaders like Harkishan Singh Surjeet, V.P. Singh and A.B. Bardhan had also stressed on the issue.
