M Kanimozhi was making a sartorial statement when she chose a red and black saree to wear to the court on 21 December. The colours are that of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), and what is certain after her acquittal in the 2G spectrum ‘scam’ case, is that her political stock is set to rise within her party. Karunanidhi's poetess daughter, while playing second fiddle to MK Stalin in the party, will be the DMK's face in New Delhi.
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The other person who is likely to be promoted politically is former telecom minister and prime accused in the case, Andimuthu Raja. A lawyer by training, A Raja often argued his own case in Justice OP Saini’s court. Being the Dalit face of the DMK from the Nilgiris, Raja will be the man to watch out for within the party.
But the 2G case was not about two individuals alone. Rewind the clock to the time when the then Comptroller and Auditor General of India declared that the manner in which spectrum had been allocated by Raja, had caused a loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer.
That gigantic figure, almost an ode to Aryabhatta, was exploited by the BJP to label the UPA regime as corrupt, with A Raja emerging as the face of that ‘dirt’. The then Prime Minister of the UPA II government, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the then Finance Minister P Chidambaram, were accused of looking the other way. The DMK was branded a party of blackmailers, with allegations that the kickbacks went into funding the Karunanidhi family-owned TV channel ‘Kalaignar TV’.
On Thursday, 21 December, Judge OP Saini dismissed the 2G case as one fuelled by rumour, gossip and speculation. He said:
For about seven years now, on all working days, summer vacation included, I religiously sat in the open court from 10 am to 5 pm, awaiting someone with some legally admissible evidence in his possession, but all in vain. Not a single soul turned up. This indicates that everybody was going by public perception created by rumour, gossip and speculation. However, public perception has no place in judicial proceedings.
CBI Special Court Judge OP Saini
‘Achhe Din’ for Congress & DMK?
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Congress and the DMK are now beaming. The verdict in the court of Judge OP Saini has thickened the glue between the two parties, bound together by the onslaught mounted by the BJP and the media. Then the subsequent cancellation by the Supreme court was seen as an affirmation that Sanchar Bhavan under Raja had favoured his industrialist friends by bending the rules. On Thursday, the allies flashed the judgment copy to say that they have been vindicated.
So is the verdict an indication of achhe din for the Congress and the DMK? The Congress, on a high after its ‘victory in defeat’ in Gujarat, would believe so. Despite the CBI’s decision to appeal to a higher court, the Congress would tom-tom that the 2G allocation was indeed a case of zero loss.
It would also, by extension, try to undercut the allegations of corruption that have been placed at its door in several other cases of defence deals, the coal scam and the Common Wealth Games (CWG) scam.
The BJP has tried to put up a brave front, pointing to how it generated far more money through the auction route, proof that the first-come-first-serve policy followed by the UPA was faulty and prone to corruption. In fact, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissively said that the Congress need not look at the verdict as a badge of honour.
The Prosecution’s Flop Show
But what Jaitley ought to be worried about as a ‘legal eagle’ is the quality of the prosecution. Justice OP Saini was scathing in his criticism of the prosecution. He points out that as the case proceeded, the prosecution became increasingly directionless, making it difficult to pinpoint what they exactly wanted to prove.
By the end, the quality of prosecution had totally deteriorated.
Justice OP Saini
What can be a more damning indictment for the CBI and its counsels that in one of the most high-profile cases of corruption, it put up such a pathetic show. It is also a lesson for the BJP that while public perception can be moulded by arguing in TV studios with anchors raising their decibel levels, judges demand hard evidence of wrongdoing. If Jaitley and his party were convinced of corruption, their government should have ensured that evidence was presented before the court.
The BJP would therefore, need to go back to the drawing board, to rework its strategy of attacking the Congress with a fresh weapon. The Congress would fancy its chances in Tamil Nadu, expecting the DMK-Congress alliance of doing well in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Tamil Nadu sends 39 MPs to the Lok Sabha and has a history of playing an important part in deciding who forms the government in Delhi, especially when the mandate is fractured.
Impact on RK Nagar Polls
With the AIADMK in a state of flux, the DMK, which has passed on the baton to MK Stalin will have its nose ahead. The 2G ‘scam’ was always an effective weapon for Jayalalithaa and the BJP to use against the DMK, labelling it as a corrupt party. Now that the taint is off, Stalin can be expected to target the AIADMK over allegations of corruption more emphatically.
An indication that the tide could be turning for the DMK was given when Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a surprise visit to Karunanidhi in November. While the relations between the DMK and BJP remain frosty as of now, much could depend on the contours of the next Lok Sabha polls. After all, Karunanidhi has engaged in business with the BJP under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
For now, Stalin, after being out of power for several years, would want to emerge as a regional chieftain whom everyone in Delhi has on speed dial. The verdict has also given him the opportunity to step out of his father Karunanidhi’s shadow. Stalin may expect the 2G verdict to have an immediate impact on Thursday’s RK Nagar by-election.
Given that it is Jayalalithaa’s constituency and she won the 2011 election piggybacking on the attack on the DMK over the 2G scam, it will be sweet revenge indeed. However, RK Nagar is a different ballgame altogether, where distribution of money is more likely to decide the next MLA.
(The writer is a senior journalist. He can be reached @Iamtssudhir. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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