Chennai, Oct 20 (IANS) Tamil Nadu’s major opposition party AIADMK Tuesday announced it would boycott the state government organised World Classical Tamil Conference scheduled to be held in Coimbatore next January.
In a statement issued here Tuesday, party general secretary J. Jayalalithaa said Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had announced at a conference of district collectors exactly a month ago that the ninth World Tamil Conference was to be held in January 2010 in Coimbatore.

“When this announcement was made, I had pointed out that the World Tamil Conferences were held only under the aegis of the International Association for Tamil Research (IATR).”

“It is for the IATR to announce the World Tamil Conference. If the 2010 conference was being organised independent of IATR, then it could not qualify to be the 9th International Tamil Conference as was being made out to be.”

With Tamils in Malaysia and Sri Lanka living in distress it is not the right time to host such a conference, she said she had noted in her earlier statement.

According to Jayalalithaa, with IATR refusing its approval for the World Tamil Conference, Karunanidhi decided to have his own conference by calling it World Classical Tamil Conference.

“Though Karunanidhi had been Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu all of five times and held office for more than 15 years, the self-proclaimed saviour of the Tamil language had never thought it fit to host a World Tamil Conference.”

She charged: “Today, with his duplicity with regard to the Tamil cause totally exposed before the world Tamil community and with his credibility as a saviour of the Tamil language at its lowest ebb, Karunanidhi is desperate to hold a conference.”

The Ninth World Tamil Conference has now become a World Classical Tamil Conference and tomorrow it might even become Karunanidhi’s Tamil Conference, Jayalalithaa said.

“To invest such a dubious project with legitimacy, he has invited me to be on the committee organising the event or depute someone on my behalf. Does he genuinely believe that I will demean and lower myself to such an extent as to be part of this dubious exercise,” she asked.

It is expected that AIADMK’s political ally, the Vaiko-led MDMK will also boycott the conference.