Chennai, Feb. 4: Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi has reacted angrily to P. Chidambaram’s remarks last weekend that the state was becoming a haven for the Tamil Tigers.

The war of words comes days after the Congress-led Centre virtually put the proposed Sethusamudram ship canal project on hold, ignoring the DMK’s requests to begin it quickly.

Union finance minister Chidambaram said in Nagercoil on Saturday the state “was once again becoming a hunting ground for the LTTE and that the DMK should nip its activities in the bud”.

Karunanidhi, whose party believes the Centre’s move to order an ASI survey into the setu project was a ploy to stall it, was quick to sniff a “conspiracy to topple” his government. Chidambaram’s comments seemed to imply the state was not doing enough to keep out the LTTE.

The finance minister’s remarks come days after ADMK chief Jayalalithaa lashed out in the Assembly at the DMK for allowing the backers of the LTTE, particularly the Dalit Panthers of India, to go unpunished.

Thirumavalavan, the leader of the Dalit Panthers, had justified “smuggling arms” to the LTTE — blamed for the 1991 assassination of Rajiv Gandhi — at a recent rally.

The silence of the Congress chief whip in the House, Peter Alphonse, and other party MLAs when Jayalalithaa made the charges also rankled the chief minister and fuelled suspicion that the Congress and the ADMK were united against the Tigers.

Reacting to Chidambaram, Karunanidhi said 12 cases of arms smuggling and other activities to help the LTTE had been filed. Over 100 people, including 11 Tiger cadres and 92 sympathisers, were arrested during the 20-month DMK rule. Of those held, 40 were detained under the stringent National Security Act.

“Are these not evidence of nipping their (LTTE’s) activities in the bud?” Karunanidhi asked, insisting that keeping the banned terror group out was the “collective responsibility” of the DMK and its allies. The Congress, PMK, Left and the DPI support the government. The DMK has only 95 members in the 234-member House.

Karunanidhi’s denials came on a day Intelligence Bureau chief P.C. Haldar called on the chief minister. Official sources described the meeting as a “courtesy call”.

Speaking last night, Karunanidhi argued that there was no reason why the DMK, which had given up its core “separate Dravida Nadu demand” in the 1960s, should go soft on the LTTE.

He said the “law would take its course” against anyone supporting the LTTE irrespective of whether they were allies. “There is no place for traitors in Tamil Nadu,” he added.