2G spectrum scam judgment gives DMK major boost in Tamil Nadu, opens up the 2019 Lok Sabha polls

The socialite who derisively expanded DMK to ‘Delhi Money for Karunanidhi’ can eat crow. So can former Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, Vinod Rai who majestically declared that the loss to the exchequer due to the 2G scam was an astounding Rs 1,760,000,000,000. Or Rs 1.76 lakh crore. The number of zeroes was enough to taint the then UPA government and label it as a corrupt regime — a charge from which it never quite recovered. And its telecom minister Andimuthu Raja, a representive of Congress ally, the DMK, was the fall guy, seen as a courier boy to arrange funds for his political masters in Chennai. Judge OP Saini’s verdict acquitting everyone in the 2G case means ‘No One Stole Spectrum’. That it was all hawa-hawai by the then Opposition, certain members of the bureaucracy and the media. The acquittal of Raja, Kanimozhi and the rest means the 2G scam, that the CBI miserably failed to establish in court, never happened. [caption id=“attachment_4269341” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Narendra Modi’s meeting with DMK supremo M Karunanidhi last month. PTI[/caption] But given the high-profile nature of the case and the dirt that was flung around, people will find it difficult to believe there was no hanky panky. Such is the distrust for the political class, especially those in the non-NDA cluster, that the UPA’s critics will point that it is at best, a technical victory. But legally speaking, for now, Raja’s veshti is spotlessly clean. The verdict has given a political lease of life to the DMK. Its effect, in the short term will be felt in the RK Nagar Assembly constituency where polling is on at the time of writing. The DMK already fancied its chances in the election, but with the wind of the positive 2G verdict behind it, it will look to score an emphatic victory. For the better part of this decade, the 2G case has been used to push the DMK and the Congress on to the back foot. Late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa would taunt the DMK as a corrupt party, marking out the Karunanidhi family for special mention since Kanimozhi had to go to Tihar Jail in the case. To therefore win in Jayalalithaa’s erstwhile constituency would be sweet revenge. MK Stalin will see the judgment as payback time and will use it to use it to tell the world that the family and the party was targetted for political gains. Expect a more aggressive Congress now coming out to take on the BJP that was at the forefront of the political war over the 2G scam. The court has given it a handle to ward off charges that the UPA years — especially between 2009 and 2014 — witnessed the loot of the exchequer. If the verdict had indeed been delivered on 5 December, as it was originally meant to be, it could have altered the electoral narrative in the last week of the Gujarat campaign. The Congress will rue the missed opportunity. With the state of flux in Tamil Nadu, the DMK will have its nose ahead in the electoral battle for Lok Sabha in 2019 and the Assembly elections, whenever the present AIADMK arrangement collapses under the weight of its internal squabbles. While the Congress would assume the DMK will stick by the UPA, the BJP — that is looking at Tamil Nadu to make possible gains — could woo the Dravidian majority as well.

Which is why one suspects Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the first move last month when he surprised everyone by calling on an ailing M Karunanidhi at his Gopalpuram residence and spending time with Stalin and Kanimozhi. Although relations between the DMK and the BJP are not too warm, nothing can ever be ruled out in politics. Modi’s visit was the first step, with 2019 in mind. Stalin, in all probability, use this verdict to drive a hard bargain with the Congress to get maximum seats in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, whenever they are held, to try and establish himself as the strongman south of the Vindhyas. This judgment has presented him with an opportunity to emerge out of Karunanidhi’s shadows. But in case the next Lok Sabha throws up a fractured verdict, the DMK’s numbers — should it do very well, as the expectations now would be — will become extremely significant. Stalin then will become the man to watch out for. Remember, the DMK in the past has done business with both NDA and UPA. It would be a stretch to say the 2G verdict has given the Congress a foot in the door to New Delhi but certainly it has to an extent, opened up 2019. Follow all the LIVE updates from the 2G spectrum case judgment here