18 October 1999 :

Also on November 18, during a debate at the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi said though he was for abolition of capital punishment, his view was not applicable to the four accused. Clearly, Karunanidhi has backtracked because recently he had stated that his stand that capital punishment should be abolished was applicable to all cases, including the Rajiv Ghandi case. Later, A. Dheeran, a member of the breakaway faction of the PMK, made a strong plea to commute the death sentence of the four killers, stating that Rajiv's assassination was part of an international plot and only if the four were allowed to live will the larger conspiracy be known.