What’s an arrest without high-voltage drama in Tamil Nadu? And there are a few of them. The latest being Tamil Nadu Minister for Electricity, Prohibition & Excise and DMK leader V Senthil Balaji ’s arrest.
Senthil Balaji ’s arrest
The case against Balaji pertains to a job recruitment scam when he was the Transport Minister in the J Jayalalithaa-led government between 2011 and 2015. After the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids at his office in the Secretariat and his residence in Chennai, he was taken for interrogation. When he was told that he will be arrested, he complained of uneasiness.
As Balaji was being taken to a hospital for a medical checkup by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday morning, he became inconsolable. The minister was bodily taken out of the ambulance as he kept wailing as his supporters raised slogans against the ED. Dramatic scenes were witnessed at the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Specialty Hospital in Chennai.
Senthil’s wife has moved the Madras High Court against his arrest and the political fraternity is outraged not only in Tamil Nadu, but also in Delhi.
Karunanidhi’s arrest
Balaji’s arrest at around 1.30 am on Wednesday in the alleged money laundering case by the ED is a reminder of the way five-time Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi was arrested in connection with the Rs 12 crore ‘flyover scam’ around 1.45 am on June 30 2001.
Karunanidhi was woken up by police, dragged out of his bed from his home and arrested. The 78-year-old DMK stalwart was not even given time to change his clothes.
The house was filled with curt policemen who were there not only to carry out Amma’s orders, but also to carry out the frail old man.
And the cameras captured it all!
Karunanidhi could be seen throwing his arms up in the air and screaming ‘aiyo’ while being forcibly taken down the stairs of his residence.
When Karunanidhi’s nephew Murasoli Maran, who was also a Union minister, asked the police to produce the arrest warrant, a physical scuffle broke out. The Union minister, a heart patient, had to be admitted to the intensive care unit of Apollo Hospital as a result of the assault by the police.
Karunanidhi’s arrest and the subsequent spectacle had all the makings of a Tollywood potboiler — with family members alleging ill-treatment, and the political fraternity indulging in name-calling over misuse of power.
The case against Karunanidhi, his son MK Stalin and 12 others pertained to alleged corruption to the tune of Rs 12 crore in the construction of 10 flyovers in Chennai. Stalin was also arrested.
J Jayalalithaa’s arrest in DA case
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) matriarch, J Jayalalithaa, was arrested twice, in 1996 and 2014 in connection with a disproportionate assets case.
In December 1996, after the high court rejected all her anticipatory bail applications, Jayalalithaa was arrested. She was taken in a common police van, and placed in custody in an ordinary cell for 30 days. She was given the same food as that served to other jail inmates. The prosecution’s case was that Amma, during her tenure as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, amassed wealth to the tune of Rs 66 crore in the form of farmhouses, bungalows, a tea garden, farm lands, industrial sheds, jewellery and cash in banks.
At that time the DMK government, under Karunanidhi, was in power.
The jail experience not only took a toll on Amma’s health but also sowed the seeds of the vendetta which subsequently came back to haunt Karunanidhi in 2001 (described above).
Again, in September 2014, Jayalalilthaa was in her morning prayers when the police arrested her from her from her Poes Garden residence and taken to Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara jail while her hysterical supporters raised slogans outside her residence.
At the time, news agency PTI reported that an AIADMK member had said that 113 people across Tamil Nadu had suffered heart attacks due to Jayalalithaa’s conviction, while 41 committed suicide in one or the other way.
Chidambaram’s arrest
On August 22, 2019, former Finance Minister P Chidambaram was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in connection with the INX Media case after high-voltage drama.
Following the rejection of his anticipatory bail by the Delhi High Court, the CBI reached Chidambaram’s Jor Bagh residence in New Delhi. They knocked at the main gate for a while before jumping the boundary wall to enter the premises.
They were soon joined by more CBI personnel and after almost an hour, the probe agency whisked Chidambaram away and took him to the RML Hospital, for a medical check-up and later to Tihar Jail.
A Twitter post by Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram read: “The drama and spectacle being enacted by the agencies is to simply sensationalise and satisfy the voyeuristic pleasure of some.”