Karunanidhi Threatens To Pull Out Of UPA

Shortly after he made the threat while leading protests against rising prices, the former Tamil Nadu chief minister told reporters that he had not threatened to quit the Congress-led UPA.

"I never said anything like that," Karunanidhi clarified, adding that his party would continue in the UPA and would not like to put any pressure on the central government ahead of presidential polls.

Speaking at the DMK office, he said he would never leave the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was looking into the issue of fuel prices.

"The prime minister has promised action," he said.

His clarification came after the media began speculating the future of the UPA coalition if the DMK were to pull out.

"We will stay with them (UPA) only till it is possible. If it is not possible, we will go our separate way and stress our policies." To this he said he was talking about last week's petrol price hike.


He said it would be a race between the central and the AIADMK governments on who would pay heed to the plight of the common person and reduce prices that he said had hit the common man hard.