Finally, Dayanidhi Maran, Union Textile Minister has resigned under pressure from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the parliamentary leader of the DMK to which Maran belongs. The allegation against him was his association with his family’s Sun media network which ran FM channels. The Supreme Court had been informed by the CBI that telecom promoter C. Sivasankaran appeared to have been coerced into selling his stakes in Aircel to the Maxis group which is close to the Marans. In these circumstances, Maran’s continuance was considered inadvisable. The Textile Minister refused to acknowledge his complicity and his party chief, M. Karunanidhi also supported him saying that the media had cooked up the story. Maran, however, does not have a clean record. In May 2007, he had to quit as Communications and IT Minister after falling out with Karunanidhi. The DMK’s ties with the UPA government are weakening. Telecom Minister A. Raja was the first DMK Minister who had to resign and was arrested in the 2G Spectrum scam. Besides, Karunanidhi’s daughter is also in Tihar jail on the same charge. The DMK has decided to support the ruling Congress from outside. J.Jayalalitha, AIADMK Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has taken the opportunity to put the screws on the Sun empire owned by the Marans.
The succession of instances of corruption in the DMK has wider repercussions. The BJP has seized the occasion to target the Congress which is the mainstay of the UPA. It has asked for the resignation of P. Chidambaram who was Finance Minister when the 2G Spectrum was parcelled out. Manmohan Singh has also been attacked for shielding tainted persons and allowing them to continue in his cabinet. The apex court has slammed the government for slow action against black money stashed away in foreign countries. The Left is in support of the BJP’s criticism of the UPA government for the stink of corruption around it. The UPA government is in a crisis.
