The Congress-DMK alliance is in place and will continue was all the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, would say after a nearly hour-long meeting with the DMK leader Mr M. Karunanidhi.

The meeting of the two at the residence of Mr Karunanidhi, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, comes a couple of days after the resignation of Mr Dayanidhi Maran as Textiles Minister on Thursday.

Mr Maran, a DMK Member of Parliament, resigned in the backdrop of allegations of his possible involvement with vested interest in a telecom deal when he was the Telecom Minister between 2004 and 2007.

Following the meeting with Mr Karunanidhi, the Union Minister made a statement to media persons but declined to respond to any questions.

Mr Mukherjee said: “This is my first visit to Chennai after the General Elections to the Assemblies took place. Whenever I come to Chennai I make it a practice to call on the leader and discuss political situations prevailing in that point of time.”

“Therefore, when I came to Chennai this time I took the opportunity of calling on the leader ‘Kalaignar’ Karunanidhi and discussed the current political situation prevailing in the country.”

“One more thing I would like to add there is a lot of writing and speculation whether the alliance between the Congress and DMK is continuing or not. My respectful submission would be this alliance is there, the alliance will continue and it will be strengthened,” he asserted.

Mr Maran is the second DMK Union Minister to resign from the Cabinet after Mr A. Raja, the former Communications Minister, resigned last year in the wake of allegations relating to the ongoing 2G spectrum investigations. Mr Raja has been named in the charge-sheet by the CBI. Also, Ms K. Kanimozhi, the daughter of Mr Karunanidhi and a Rajya Sabha MP, has also been named in a charge-sheet in connection with the 2G scam.

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