Belated action

At last under media pressure and ultimately the charge of CBI that the high-profile Union Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran forced a Chennai-based Telecom Promoter C Sivasankaran to sell his stakes in Aircel to a Malaysian firm in 2006 during his tenure as Telecom Minister in UPA-I, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had to seek his resignation. But how the UPA-2 is captive and dictated by its tainted sothern ally the DMK can be seen in Maran’s resignation that he resigned only after getting order from the DMK patriarch M Karunidhi. DMK is the largest alliance partner of UPA-2 and Maran is its second casualty of the multi-crore 2G scam of 1.76 lakh crore. This very clearly reflects of inaction by the PM in 2G Scam, which is the mother of all corruption. Undoubtedly, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is honest, a man of integrity, fine gentleman, world renowned economist and the father of economic globalisation in India but at the same time the wave of scams that have swept the UAP-2 has taken place right under his nose and he miserably failed to check them due to inaction.When pushed to the wall in the 2G spectrum allocation case, high-profile Maran had to resign from the Union Cabinet. Maran’s continuance in the Cabinet became untenable after the CBI in its status report on the 2G scam case charged him with pressurising a Chennai-based telecom promoter to sell his stakes in Aircel to a Malaysian firm in 2006 during his tenure as Telecom Minister in UPA-I. Maran, son of late Union Minister Muralosi Maran, is a grand nephew of Karunanidhi. With this, Maran becomes the second DMK minister to step down for alleged involvement in 2G scam. Former Telecom Minister A Raja was also forced to resign in November, 2010 when the CAG indicted him in the scam. Karunanidhi’s daughter and DMK MP Kanimozhi and Raja are currently in Tihar jail for their alleged involvement in the scam. The CBI, in its report, also said that during 2004-07 when Maran was telecom Minister, Sivasankaran, was forced to sell the stake in Aircel to a Malaysian firm Maxis Group. It is alleged that the Karunidhi family-owned Sun TV received pay-offs from a Malaysian firm in return for the spectrum alloted to it during Maran’s tenure surfaced. All these developments amply indicate that DMK quota minister of telecom was carrying his personal and party property promotion through telecom ministry since long and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet remained a mute spectator to the misappropriation of public exchequer worth 1.76 lakh crore due to compusion of coalition politics. It is nothing but the helpless and inaction of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.