On his first visit to Chennai after taking over as Prime Minister, there were two prominent names conspicuous by their absence from Manmohan Singh’s list of visitors at the Raj Bhawan today. Neither the Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa, nor his key ally and former chief minister M. Karunanidhi called on the Prime Minister this evening.While Jayalalithaa and the Governor, P.S. Ramamohan Rao, received him at the airport with a bouquet, they barely held any discussions with him there. Later, when the Prime Minister met ‘‘VVIPs’’ at the Raj Bhavan after attending a function at Kalpakkam, the Chief Minister was ‘‘conspicuously absent’’. So was her arch-rival and the DMK president, Karunanidhi, who is in Kodaikanal, penning the script for the movie, Kalaignarin Kannamma. When Singh left by the evening flight for Delhi, the Chief Minister was not present at the airport to see him off.The Prime Minister’s itinerary released by the State Public Department had mentioned a scheduled meeting with Karunanidhi at 3 pm today. However, the DMK president issued a statement clarifying that he had already informed the PMO that he would not be able to meet the Prime Minister because of his prior engagements. He said he had deputed Union Shipping Minister T.R. Baalu to convey the information to the Prime Minister. ‘‘Despite this, the newspapers continued to carry reports of the scheduled meeting with the Prime Minister,’’ he added.The DMK circles insisted that there was ‘‘no political significance’’ in the cancellation of the meeting. ‘‘It is only because he is busy writing the script for his movie,’’ said DMK spokesperson Elangovan.Meanwhile, a delegation of key DMK leaders, including its general secretary K. Anbazhagan, called on the Prime Minister and submitted a memorandum to him, urging him to bring five more districts under the food for work programme. MDMK chief Vaiko and his party leaders, too, met the Prime Minister and urged him to speed up the river water linking scheme.
