DMK president and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi was admitted to hospital for a minor procedure on Wednesday morning and discharged later in the day.
“DMK leader and former Chief minister M. Karunanidhi has been admitted for a minor procedure—change of PEG (percutaneous endoscopic gastronomy) tube. He will be discharged from the hospital later today,” Kauvery Hospital executive director S. Aravindan said in a statement.
The nonagenarian has been ailing since October last year and has been undergoing treatment. In October and subsequently in December Karunanidhi was admitted to the Kauvery hospitals in Chennai for treatment. In December he underwent a tracheostomy. Since then Karunanidhi has been totally inactive in politics. The veteran leader, who had been the nerve of Tamil Nadu politics for more than five decades now, has fallen silent since last October. The leader, who actively campaigned during the 2016 elections, has not been seen outside in any of the public meetings or DMK events in the recent past.
Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastronomy according to the medical experts is a medical procedure in which a tube most popularly known as PEG tube is passed into a patient’s stomach through the abdominal wall, most commonly to provide a means of feeding when the patient’s oral intake becomes less or is not adequate to keep him healthy.
Though his family and the party seniors said Karunanidhi is healthy, sources say, Karunanidhi will not come back to active politics and not even manage party affairs as he used to in the recent past.
