Sonia Gandhi's visit to Trichy in Tamil Nadu on Friday left many in the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) ruffled over a perceived slight to the DMK patriarch K Karunanidhi.

The 87-year old and wheelchair-bound chief minister had gone to recieve the UPA chairperson at the Meenambakkam airport in Chennai. Party leaders had hoped that she would hold private parleys with him on some of the major irritants that have cropped up between DMK and Congress - especially Ayodhya, 2G scam and the Tamil Nadu assembly elections. However, Gandhi is learnt to have abruptly boarded a chopper for Trichy after her welcome.

DMK feelers have been up since the snub with speculation rife within the party that Congress may no longer be interested in ties with it.

Some senior DMK leaders attributed the snub to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's growing influence over his mother. The younger Gandhi has in the past chose to ignore DMK leadership.

While the party sees the development as worrisome, some leaders think that her action may have been spurred by advice from state and national Congress leaders from Tamil Nadu who want to see the DMK out of the UPA.

But the party seems to be most worried about the April '11 assembly elections in the state. The possibility of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) fighting the elections as a part of a third front  - with PMK and Vijaykant.

However, TNCC may not have enough cadre to go solo during the elections - as the low turnout at Gandhi's Trichy meeting suggests. The TNCC, though, blamed the Tamil print media for not giving enough coverage to the meeting where the Congress president inducted an influential Thevar leader S Thirunaukarasar. He was with the BJP before, having been in Vajpayee's cabinet during the NDA rule.