Karunanidhi visits Delhi only when the need arises. Most of the time Delhiwala politicians come to him, licking his feet to prop up their coalition governments. And he, by some means or the other makes sure that he's holding the right end of the power baton every time the general elections are over. And it has now come to a stage where he sees some plum portfolios like IT, communication, textiles etc as his family's or party's private property. Most of the time, the games he play to get these portfolios for his party can at best be called as extortion. Even after the last general election, when there was a clamour to keep the big thief Raja out of ministership, cunning Karuna refused to budge. He told Sonia in no uncertain terms that he wants raja in the ministry, come what may. Yes, he was sure that giving this ministry to someone else may cause the murky dealings to be uncovered. And now that its become clear that money amounting to a cool 60,000 crore has been siphoned off by raja during the 2G spectrum auction, the noises to kick him out were louder than ever. And there comes karuna again with his dark sunglasses concealing the deceit in his eyes.

This time, the scriptwriter in him has come up with caste card to rescue raja. He says raja was victimised because he was from a lower caste. Not surprising, coming from a man who rose to prominence with his 'anti-hindi' agitations. Evoking petty regionalistic, relioginistic and caste sentiments comes naturally to this old man. As soon as he arrived in Delhi last week, he grandly announced that Raja wouldn't step down, come what may. This, even before he discussed the issue with the congress. He was so sure that the spineless party will bent 361 degrees to satisfy allies like him. And as expected, after the meeting the congress spokesman spat out what Karuna asked him to, "There's no credible material to justify action against Raja. And this comes from a party which threw out its own minister 2 weeks back, on a non-existent 'private' sweat equity. So principled they are that they think 60,000 crore of public money disappearing in thin air is a small matter. The tapped phone conversations of Raja with a corporate middle woman Nira Radia throws up enough proof of wrong doings. And the funniest part is that this was available with the UPA even before the last election results were out. Manmohan Singh's hands maybe clean. But as long as he persists with such crooks and bends and sucks to sunglassed criminals, he can never lay claim to the glory of being super clean.

Its to be seen how far Karuna and his likes plays the power game. Another of the ugliest of the games was played in the Mullaperiyaar dam issue. (For the uninitiated, Mullaperiyaar is a dam located in the periyaar river in kerala from which tamil nadu is drawing water from 1886). Even after it has become clear that raising the dam height will cause loss of life of epic proportions in the adjoining areas in kerala, Tamil Nadu was hell bent on going forward with the same. The Kerala offer to build a new dam in the place of the 135 year old dam which may burst any moment, was also not accepted. And to further their dirty aim of scuttling any thought of a new dam, the DMK used their coalition powers at the centre. It tried everything to stop the formation of an empowered committee by the supreme court to study the safety of the existing dam. Thankfully, the judiciary prevailed over the coalition games and the committee was constituted in February this year and will submit the results in 6 months. Its to be seen how their recommendations will be implemented by the central government. The same coalition games has been playing out in blocking the formation of the immensely useful transshipment terminal in Vizhinjam. 60 years since its first plan, this natural port which could've brought a lot of revenue to the nation remains a dream just because some parties tried to play the regional card. (Its another issue that there's another lobby within Kerala, which is scuttling the development of this port).

And so, the coalition games go on. The UPA has bent and flipped many times over. Its a pity that even after getting such a strong majority this time, the congress is squandering an opportunity to teach its coalition partners a lesson. Britain, which is going to get a first taste of coalition government in 36 years, will do well to learn some lessons from this ugly games. The conservatives(leading party) should take some lessons on what not to do while heading a coalition government and how to deal with crooks like Karuna and Raja.

pic courtesy- The Hindu

An unrelated link-Read this shocking story of how the land mafia evicted a nun and 60 odd mentally ill inmates from a destitute home in Kerala. And this is the land where the 'communists' rule!

your crusader Praveen