Tapes talk volumes about MK’s family: Jaya

The telephonic conversations corporate lobbyist Niira Radia had with former Union telecom minister A Raja, some industrialists and journalists “mainly show the first family of Tamil Nadu in their true colours,” AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa charged on Friday.

In a statement, Jayalalithaa said: ”In the brouhaha over the Rs1,76,379 crore 2-G spectrum scam perpetrated by A Raja of the DMK, an interesting side-show has gone largely unnoticed, at least in Tamil Nadu: the series of telephonic conversations between the various dramatis personae with Niira Radia, a liaison agent for large corporates like the Tatas and Ambanis, who is also a political wheeler-dealer, apparently wielding considerable extra-constitutional influence in the corridors of power.“
“A conversation between Niira Radia and senior journalist Vir Sanghvi (who was apparently an interlocutor between the Karunanidhi family and the Congress leadership), shows the utter disdain the Central leadership has for its Tamil Nadu allies.”
An excerpt from the tapes shows Sanghvi as saying: “As far as we are concerned, there are two wives, one brother, one sister, one nephew… It’s all got very complicated for us… This is not a Congress-DMK problem. This is an internal DMK problem because they can’t get their act together between all his wives and children and nephews…”
Jayalalithaa said Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi is on record demanding for herself the Environment portfolio, failing which she wants Health or Aviation or Tourism and Culture. Kanimozhi is also on record making an impassioned plea for the telecom portfolio for her close friend, A Raja, while foul-mouthing another aspirant, her nephew and Karunanidhi’s grand-nephew Dayanidhi Maran.
“Another senior journalist Barkha Dutt is recorded conveying the Congress leadership’s exasperation over a media announcement by T R Baalu that the DMK was planning to boycott the swearing-in ceremony to embarrass the Congress and pressure them to yield to the DMK’s multifarious demands,” she pointed out in the statement.
One conversation reveals that Dayanidhi Maran had been carrying out a smear campaign in Delhi circles against his uncle and Karunanidhi’s elder son M K Alagiri, whom Dayanidhi had described as uneducated, having studied only up to Class V and illiterate in English. Yet another conversation indicates that Dayanidhi was canvassing for a “lucrative“ infrastructure portfolio for himself, against the wishes of the DMK chief.
“A person like Alagiri, whom the Tamil Nadu population know as one accused in murder cases, and whose close circle of friends include ‘Attack’ Pandi, ‘Sori’ Murugan, ‘Auto’ Ravi, ‘Ochu’ Balu and ‘Blade’ Pakiri, has been projected to the Central leadership as a ‘mass leader’.”
“In yet another conversation between Niira Radia and Vir Sanghvi, it comes out that despite Karunanidhi’s objections to Dayanidhi Maran, the Maran scion’s candidature was being actively canvassed by M K Stalin and M K Selvi, who is married to Murasoli Maran’s brother Selvam.”
The reason for pushing Dayanidhi does not apparently stem from blood ties, but “from the fact that Dayanidhi had paid a whopping Rs 600 crore to Stalin and Selvi’s mother and one of Karunanidhi’s wives, Dayalu.” This is in addition to the “rounded up” sum paid by Kalanidhi Maran to the Karunanidhis for relinquishing their shares in the Sun TV network in 2007, the AIADMK leader said.
She said the period of the recordings leaked in the media relate to the days of ministry formation of UPA-2, when Karunanidhi was bargaining hard to get the maximum number of plum portfolios with money-earning potential, not for the DMK members, but for the various members of his own huge family.
“The IT Department was trying to trace the trail of the illegal funds of political persons obtained through extending favours to corporate houses and for this purpose had placed the telephones and mobile phones of Niira Radia under surveillance for a certain period,” Jayalalithaa said.