What most of India is sure about is that the CBI raid early this morning and its calling off was a purely political game to unnerve the DMK. It also sends out strong signals to the UPA’s “outside supporters”, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati, to toe the line and support a tottering and patently immoral and illegal minority government.
Udayanidhi Stalin, the grandson of DMK supremo M Karunanidhi
Congress party honcho Sonia Gandhi was “angry” and “upset”. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said: “We are upset.The timing of the raid is unfortunate.The government didn’t do it. We will find out who is responsible.” Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram has “strongly dissaproved” it.
This is really Incredible India! Or is this Incredulous India?
But who will investigate the sudden mystery raid on the residence of DMK crown prince M K Stalin and equally sudden and even more mysterious calling it off mid-way by India’s premier investigation agency, barely a day after the DMK officially pulled out of the Congress party-led United Political Alliance at the centre?
But what most of India is sure about is that the CBI raid early this morning and its calling off was a purely political game to unnerve the DMK. It also sends out strong signals to the UPA’s “outside supporters”, the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party of Mayawati, to toe the line and support a tottering and patently immoral and illegal minority government.
The Central Bureau of Investigation is being openly derided as the “Congress Bureau of Investigation”.
Fingers are being pointed out Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, V Narayanasamy, who is now scratching his head hard trying to figure out what went wrong. He too had this to say: government had nothing to do with the CBI raid on Stalin. But Sonia Gandhi, who holds the “remote control” of the government, questioned the minister, who holds the portfolio under which the CBI comes.
Meanwhile, another wing of the government, the Enforcement Directorate, were also holding out the threat that DMK supremo Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, a suspect in the 2G scam case, will likely see herself cooling her heels in jail once more, this time on charges of money laundering in the 2G scam.
DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi said he did not wish to speculate on the CBI team visiting his son Stalin’s residence this morning. “I woke up only at 10:00 am. I saw the news about the raids on TV. Stalin has clarified,” Karunanidhi told reporters in Chennai.
But Stalin said the CBI raid targeting his son Udayanidhi in connection with the purchase of an imported car was part of a “political vendetta”.
Today morning, CBI teams fanned out across Tamil Nadu’s capital city Chennai to question some persons in connection with illegal import of cars. A four-member team landed at Stalin’s residence at 6.30 am and questioned Udayanidhi for about one-and-a-half hours when the DMK leader had gone for his morning walk.
Media reports reported that Udayanidhi told the CBI sleuths that the car in question was at the workshop. The CBI said Udayanidhi had purchased the car from a luxury car smuggler Alex Joseph a couple of years back.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which was pursuing the case after Alex’s arrest in November 2011, handed over the case to the CBI. Incidentally, the DRI falls under Chidambaram’s ministry.
Udayanidhi is a producer of Tamil films under the banner of Red Giant Movies. Recently, he has also taken to acting.
Writes Venky Vembu in Firstpost: “Of good suggestions for establishing the credibility of the CBI, there are aplenty. But when the Congress, which has been in power the longest, has a vested interest in using the agency as its handmaiden, and when professional investigators render themselves available for political rewards in return for favours rendered, the prospects of breaking this virtuous cycle are pretty dim.” (read here)
The Samawadi Party, meanwhile, tried to put out a brave face, calling the raid “a political revenge”.
“This is a case of politics of revenge. SP will never accept this. If Congress thinks this will scare us, it is not possible,” SP leader Naresh Aggarwal said.
But DMK supremo Karunanidhi, who till yesterday was roaring over the Sri Lankan Tamils’ issue, was mewing like a cat today: An apparently shaken DMK leader told reporters: “If central ministers say they were not aware of the raids, then we will have to believe them. It is not proper for me to speculate.”
But the whole of India is already speculating. And fingers are being pointed out only at the Congress party.
Parkala Observer 