Neyveli protest comes from within UPA

Chennai: The UPA Government's decision to disinvest Neyveli Lignite Corporation is spelling trouble within the coalition.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi is the latest to speak out against the decision.

The employees of Neyveli Lignite Corporation have already put up posters threatening a strike against the proposed 10 per cent disinvestment in the PSU.

It's a protest that has now put Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi at loggerheads.

Karunanidhi is supporting the protests. He has even asked the Centre to reconsider its decision and threatened to join the protests by the employees' unions.

"We have faxed a letter on this to the Central Government," Karunanidhi said.

In just a month since he came to power, Karunanidhi has had to deal with two politically sensitive issues.

He couldn't support the Centre on the fuel price hike and now the Neyveli disinvestment issue is something where he just cannot keep quiet.

And as they smiled together on the same dais to inaugurate South India's first petroleum pipeline from Chennai to Madurai, the octogenarian Chief Minister and the reformist Finance Minister clearly had a delicate issue to sort out.

Just a month ago, the two leaders fought an election together. Now it's time to fight between themselves over their economic differences.

As for the Centre, the focus right now is how to deal with its ambitious disinvestment plan.

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