Azhagiri: Mixed day?

Chennai, June 29: The chairman of a civic body was killed in a car explosion hours after the Congress-DMK combine won an Assembly byelection 60 km from the blast site.

Murugan, the chief of the Sivaganga Municipal Corporation, died when a bomb went off in his Scorpio just as he was getting into the vehicle after stepping out of a hotel in the heart of the town around 1.45 this afternoon. The driver, who lost both his legs, is in a coma.

Murugan, said to belong to the DMK faction led by M.K. Azhagiri, M. Karunanidhi’s elder son, succumbed to his injuries in hospital.

Eight persons near the site of the explosion were injured, including three women and the staff of a state transport bus. The blast, which blew Murugan’s jeep into pieces and shattered the windscreen of the bus, is believed to have been triggered by a remote-control device.

The blast came hours after this morning’s announcement that the DMK-backed Congress candidate K. Rajendran had won the Madurai West seat, defeating his ADMK rival Sellur Raju by over 31,000 votes.

“Fortunately, the explosion took place during the lunch hour when not many are around. Otherwise, the toll would have been much higher,” a police official in Sivaganga said.

The injured have been taken to government hospitals in Sivaganga and Madurai. There is no word on the nature of the explosives used, or whether the attack was a result of the intra-party rivalry in the DMK in recent months.

The Madurai bypoll was a high-stakes contest for the ruling DMK. It was even more crucial for Azhagiri, who oversees the party’s affairs in the town and nearby areas.

His name had figured in the May 9 attack on the offices of Dinakaran, owned by the Maran family that has fallen foul with Karunanidhi. The newspaper carried an opinion poll that put M.K. Stalin, younger son of Karunanidhi, ahead of Azhagiri in the party succession race. The report provoked a mob claiming allegiance to Azhagiri to launch an attack on the daily’s office in Madurai, killing three employees.

ADMK leader Jayalalithaa has launched a campaign against the alleged vandalism by Azhagiri’s men in the bypoll.