DMK

The shock to the DMK – the arrest of Kanimozhi; but what can do the DMK do ?

Finally the long awaited arrest happened. After the earlier arrest of DMK’s Raja, the investigation of the case by the CBI kept on moving ahead, guided by the ongoing investigation by the CBI, with media highlighting the various lapses by the CBI and by the investigation agencies, and with the Supreme Court looking into the progress of the cases. The reports by the CBI, the ED and the Income Tax department are ongoing, and from time to time, the Supreme Court gets into the progress of the cases and delivers some sort of strictures to the agencies. Just recently, the Supreme Court delivered warnings to the Income Tax department about why it has not carried out investigations since 2008, even when there is information available on tax evasions. The reply by the IT department, about the companies being big just went to further enrage the court, and one can expect that such warnings will be ongoing whenever the court sees any kind of interference by politicians.
This warning and court monitoring is what is being used by the Congress Government to convince the DMK that it can do nothing as the investigation into the 2G scam reaches Karunanidhi’s family. Earlier, Kanimozhi’s lawyers tried to blame Raja and then Sharat Kumar for everything that happened so far, claiming that Kanimozhi only held 20% of Kalaignar TV, and hence was innocent. However, this is a laughable supposition. A channel launched by Karunanidhis family, named on him, and she had no role to play. And Karunanidhi’s wife was the 60% share holder (and has not been charged so far, because of her old age).
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Early trends in the polls – Congress in a leading position, but not really ahead

At this point, the trends in all the regional elections are pretty clear, and some of the expectations are coming true. The states which went to elections were: West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Pondicherry. The results in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu were the ones which were most eagerly awaited, because of the implications of these on national parties. And the results did not disappoint, since the outcome of the elections have shaken up many politicians, with the most deep impact on the Left Front which lost its decades old bastion of West Bengal, and also seems to be losing in Kerala, thus relegating it to a non-entity. What happens to the leadership of Prakash Karat may be an interesting side-story. The Communist Front will lose all its political powers after this election, but the gainer is not the Congress. Here is a more state by state analysis.

West Bengal: The Left Front in the state, who have been in power for the past so many decades (since 1977) have finally lost by a huge margin to the firebrand Mamta Banerjee. This was somewhat expected, although the margin of victory shows how the Left has been sidelined. This is even more incredible since the Left has a cadre based organization which was expected to use its measures such as force and organization to get people to vote on its side. However, the lack of development, faulty policies by the Left, and many misdeeds of the Left cadre have pushed the people to vote in enough numbers for Mamta Banerjee. The Congress also wins, but is mostly along for the ride by virtue of being coalition partners. The Congress would have been hoping for an election where Mamta does not have a majority of her own, but it seems likely that Mamta will get to that position, which puts her in an incredibly strong position in the state, and continues with her ability to even push her weight around in the center. The Left will have to wait for quite some time to see whether it can even think of a comeback.
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The PAC indicts a lot of people in the 2G scam, and then in turn, the PAC overthrows its Chairman, Murli Manohar Joshi

It has been a bizarre few days in terms of the investigation into the 2G scam. There are multiple bodies that are doing the investigation, with probably the least result expected from the Parliamentary body, the PAC (the Parliamentary Accounts Committee), which is empowered to look into accounts presented by the Government, and by the CAG. Based on the report by the CAG about a massive scam in the allotment of telecom licenses by the Department under A Raja, the CAG presented a report that showcased a scam of immense proportions. When the PAC started looking into this issue, there was not much of a problem, since it is legally expected to look into reports by the CAG. However, when there was a demand for a JPC, the Congress used the ongoing investigation by the PAC as an example to try and stonewall the demand for a JPC. On the other hand, the opposition (primarily the BJP), pushed for the JPC as a means to embarrass the UPA, mainly because they were refusing the demand for the JPC. Finally, after the Congress agreed to the JPC, which would be headed by a Congress member and where the majority would be from the UPA Government (plus semi friendly parties such as the BSP and the SP), it started pushing back on the activities of the PAC.
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