Journalism of Courage
Two days after the DMK walked out of the UPA and sparked a new political crisis at the Centre,a CBI team raided the home of top DMK leader M K Stalin in Chennai early on Thursday morning,kicking up a political storm.
The action sparked indignation in the entire political class,particularly the opposition,which charged the government with carrying out vendetta against the DMK.
The raid was believed to be part of a statewide operation to trace luxury imported cars which had evaded duty to the tune of crores of rupees. Stalins son Udhayanidhi,a film producer,was suspected to have bought one such SUV.
You all know the sequence of events. This is a case of political vendetta, Stalin,who is widely seen as the political heir to DMK chief M Karunanidhi,told reporters.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram,who won the Sivaganga seat following the alliance with the DMK,was among the first to publicly voice disapproval of the raids.
I strongly disapprove of the CBI action. It is bound to be misunderstood, he said,adding that he had conveyed his feelings to V Narayanasamy,the minister in charge of CBI.
Prime Minister Singh too publicly distanced himself from the development. We are all upset at these events. The government has no role in this,that I am sure of. We will find out the details. This should not have happened. The timing of the raid is most unfortunate, he told reporters.
Others including parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath and telecom minister Kapil Sibal and minister of state Rajiv Shukla too jumped in to criticise the CBI action.
But the agency sought to defend itself. The operation was strictly in accordance with procedures and there was no intention whatsoever to target any particular individual, it said in a statement. We have seized 17 cars during the raid but the car for which the CBI team went to Stalins house could not be traced after which the team came back.
Behind the scenes,sources said top Congress leaders made phone calls to their DMK counterparts and emphasised that directions had not been given to the CBI and the agency had acted on its own.
The PM as well as Congress president Sonia Gandhi are believed to have spoken to the DMK chief. Sources said V Narayanasamy spoke to CBI chief Ranjit Sinha,got facts of the case and conveyed them to Karunanidhis daughter,Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi. The files on the case had moved two months ago at the operational level without the knowledge of the political leadership,he is said to have told her.
The Congress damage-control exercise appeared to have worked,as hours later,Karunanidhi blamed the medias imagination behind the allegations of political vendetta. The DMK has been continuously facing political vendettas. This may or may not have been one of them, he said,but indicated that he would prefer to believe the clarification given by the union ministers.
Stalin,however,sought some kind of action against the officials concerned. The fact is that the raids did take place and the officials concerned should be held responsible. I will face the case legally, he said.
The government move to publicly express disapproval evoked sharp criticism from opposition parties,which dubbed the CBI as the Congress Bureau of Investigation.
Arun Jaitley,BJP leader and leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha,accused PM Singh of blatantly interfering in the CBIs functioning and crippling it from carrying out routine investigations.
Merely because it has a political fallout,it is improper for any Prime Minister or a finance minister to so blatantly interfere in the functioning of CBI and cripple it from carrying on its routine investigations, Jaitley said.
If this was a search in the normal course of CBI investigation,CBI is entitled to carry out that search. What business does the government have or the political regime have to interfere in CBI and start stopping that search? he said,adding that the investigating agency had carried out searches on many people in the past but the Prime Minister had never condemned them.
BSP chief Mayawati also slammed the CBI action against Stalin,contending that she too has been a victim of misuse of CBI. I have been a victim of the misuse of CBI. Be it BJP or Congress,both have misused CBI, she told reporters.
Not mincing any words,the CPM also said the raids were a clear signal to the parties supporting the ruling dispensation to behave or suffer.
