This was one battle which M Karunanidhi was not going to win, thanks to the 2G spectrum scam. He may have been a good ally to the Congress for the last six years, but the indignities of the 2G scam spattered mud on him as much as on the Congress and the latter wanted restitution.
Looking at the past encounters between the Congress and the DMK, this was meant to be yet another one where the DMK patriarch fretted and fumed from Chennai, and his will was carried out in Delhi?be it getting the shipping portfolio in 2004, putting a halt to the disinvestment of Neyveli Lignite Corporation in 2006 or inducting Raja in the Union cabinet in 2009. When Karunanidhi roared in Chennai on Friday night over seat-sharing talks for the Assembly polls, the template for the script was being dusted off at Anna Aruvalayam, the DMK headquarters.
In Delhi, however, senior Congress leaders gave the first hint that this encounter would not go the way of all others. ?We are not panicking and we are not scaling down our demand,? said a senior congress leader. Saturday morning and the stage was set for a showdown, which came that evening, when the DMK passed a resolution seeking to support the UPA government only from outside. Congress manager Ghulam Nabi Azad, untroubled, was in Jammu; Pranab Mukherjee continued on to Kolkata and Ahmad Patel did not rush to either 10 Janpath or wherever it is that Congress leaders choose to huddle.
Sunday too went by without any conciliatory move by the Congress. On Monday, the DMK precipitated matters and flew in six of its ministers at the Centre to Delhi, seeking and getting an appointment with the PM for that evening. While negotiations were on in Parliament on how to resolve the issue, it was already set about that the ‘deal breaker’ was not the number of seats or even the specificity of seats, but the prospect of MK Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi?s daughter, being questioned by the CBI just a month before polls.
The moment this became a matter of protecting the family rather than high principle of political differences, the DMK patriarch was stumped by the Congress mother ship. Sonia Gandhi?s home truths to M K Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran on Monday night did the rest. The 2G scam and its attended indignities have at least given the Congress one unexpected side benefit, a conciliatory ally, who has been shown its place.