Dayanidhi Maran resigns in view of CBI implicating in him 2G scam

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, July 7: During a ten-minute meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence this afternoon, Dayanidhi Maran handed in his resignation as Union Textile Minister after the CBI said it has evidence against him in the telecom scam.  Sources in Chennai say that his exit from the Cabinet had been sanctioned by Mr Maran’s grand-uncle, M Karunanidhi, who heads the DMK.

Mr Maran is scheduled to fly to Chennai this evening.  Sources say it’s likely that Mr Karunanidhi has selected TR Baalu to replace him in the Cabinet.

Sources said Mr Maran’s resignation came after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held high-level meetings today with senior ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, Veerappa Moily, Kapil Sibal and the Attorney General Ghulam Vahanvati separately. They discussed legal aspects of the case in view of the CBI’s status report in court yesterday - Mr Chidambaram and Mr Sibal are also top lawyers of the country and Mr Moily is the Law Minister.

The PM was, in fact, part of several huddled meetings on the issue since yesterday. He met with Congress president Sonia Gandhi last evening, and till late last night thereafter, sources said, backroom channels worked overtime between the Congress and the DMK, as it became increasingly clear that Mr Maran’s staying on was untenable. The BJP and Karunanidhi’s bête noir and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa, had made strong statements yesterday demanding that he be sacked.

Today, the BJP’s Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that the PM should have dropped Mr Maran much earlier, given the hefty charges against him in the telecom scam.

Mr Maran’s stature as a political liability was considerably expanded yesterday after the CBI said it had "preliminary evidence" against him in the telecom scam, which also cost the DMK’s A Raja his job as Telecom Minister and landed him in Tihar Jail.

Mr Maran was Telecom Minister from 2004 to 2007. Mr Raja succeeded him.  Both their tenures, according to the CBI, were littered with financial malpractices.

The last few weeks have witnessed an accelerated investigation by the CBI on accusations that Mr Maran misused his office as Telecom Minister and followed a Friend and Family plan.

C Sivasankaran, who owned Aircel, testified to the CBI that he was denied critical licenses by Mr Maran till he finally agreed to sell his company to Maxis, an empire headquartered in Malaysia and owned by T Anandakrishnan.  The CBI said yesterday that Mr Sivasankaran’s allegations do not appear baseless.  And that the minister ignored "unanimous" consent from other telecom officials to deliberately delay the licenses Mr Sivasankaran needed. Once Maxis bought the company, the licenses appeared.  And Mr Anandakrishnan pumped close to Rs. 800 crores into Sun TV, owned by Mr Maran’s brother.

With its 18 Lok Sabha MPs, the DMK is a senior partner in the UPA alliance led by the Congress at the Centre. Multiple aspects of the telecom scam have turned the country’s biggest swindle into a gaping wound for the DMK.  First, Mr Raja, a massively popular Dalit leader known for his proximity to Mr Karunanidhi’s family, was sent to jail in February on charges of conspiracy and cheating.  In May, Mr Karunanidhi’s daughter, Kanimozhi, was arrested for conspiring with Mr Raja to accept a kickback from a telecom company. And in the midst of this, the DMK suffered a humiliating defeat in the Tamil Nadu elections.  Mr Karunanidhi was voted out as Chief Minister.

MARAN ATTENDED CABINET MEETING THIS MORNING

Just two hours before he resigned, Mr Maran drove to the PM’s residence to attend a Cabinet meeting.  The allegations against him were not raised there, said sources.  Mr Maran stepped out for a few minutes when the Cabinet discussed FM licenses - his way of recusing himself and avoiding a conflict of interest because his brother, Kalanidhi, owns the Sun Network which includes radio stations.

Mr Maran was one of the first ministers to leave after the meeting ended.  When he returned to see the PM, a little after 1 pm, his car did not have the lal batti or red beacon used for ministers’ cars.