The Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) on Thursday decided not to stall the Tuglak function, in which Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will be the chief guest. The function will be held on January 14 in Kamaraj Hall, a property belonging to the Congress Trust. On the same day, Modi will also partake the Pongal lunch hosted by AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa.

“The Congress high command has indicated that the function should neither be stopped nor the situation allowed to flare up,” a senior Congress leader said, emerging from a meeting hurriedly convened by an embarrassed TNCC president, M Krishnasamy, to discuss the issue. Some fringe groups, under the umbrella of Anti-Fascist Front, staged a protest on Thursday in front of Sathyamurthy Bhavan, the Congress headquarters in Chennai, opposing the Trust’s decision to let out the hall for the Tuglak meeting. The Viduthalai Chiruthaigal party, led by Thol Thirumavalavan, an ally of the ruling DMK, is also part of the front.

A nervous Krishnasamy contacted the high command to find out if Tuglak, a Tamil weekly, owned by Cho Ramasamy, should be prevented from going ahead with the Modi meeting. “It was decided that we should not give unnecessary publicity to Modi by seeking to cancel the function and create problems,” said a senior leader.

Congress leaders pointed out that Cho Ramasamy normally booked the hall well in advance. “The day after the meeting, he pays up the rent for hiring the hall for the following year,” the leaders pointed out. The Tuglak function, held every year, is an interaction between the editor and his readers who come from all over the country for the occasion and crowd the hall hours before the programme begins.

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