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Unhappy DMK to meet Wednesday, Congress says alliance stable

New Delhi/Chennai, April 25 (IANS) The DMK Monday made apparent its unhappiness over the chargesheeting of party chief M. Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum case and has convened a meeting Wednesday on the issue, even as the Congress tried to put up a brave front by saying the UPA alliance, of which DMK is a major partner, is stable.

 
 Opposition parties meanwhile wondered why Karunanidhi’s second wife Dayalu Ammal was not chargesheeted.
 
 Dayalu Ammal, who is said to own the majority 60-percent stake in Kalaignar TV, did not figure in the charges as had been speculated by a section of the media.  Dayalu Ammal has been named as a witness.
 
 Both the DMK chief and his daughter Kanimozhi in Chennai refused to comment on the chargesheet.
 
 The DMK is the third largest constitutent of UPA after Congress and Trinamool Congress and has 18 members in the Lok Sabha.
 
 But, the Congress party in New Delhi assured that the United Progressive Alliance (UP) government is stable.
 
 The strains were however apparent as Karunanidhi avoided questions about the party planning to quit the UPA government after his daughter's name appeared in the CBI
 chargesheet.
 
 In a statement issued in Chennai, DMK's General Secretary K. Anbazhagan said the party's high-level action committee will meet April 27 to chalk out the party's future course of action in the wake of the high publicity being given to filing of charge-sheet by CBI against Kanimozhi and Managing Director of Kalaignar TV Sharad Kumar.
 
 He said Kalaignar TV in a transparent manner had accepted a loan from a company which was paid back with interest and the transaction was reported to the Income Tax authorities.
 
 According to him, the CBI questioning of Kanimozhi, Kumar and Dayalu Ammal, were given wide publicity.
 
 The CBI had arrested DMK leader and former federal communications minister A. Raja as the main accused in February. The CBI chargesheet, the second so far, filed in a special court in New Delhi also names as co-accused Karim Morani of Cineyug Films, and Asif Balwa and Rajiv B. Agarwal of Kusegaon Realty.
 
 Congress spokesman Manish Tewari asserted the government is stable.
 
 "The government is fully stable. Since 2004 when UPA came to power, there have been illusions about its instability and some people have reached the evening of their lives under such an illusion," Tewari told reporters.
 
 He also brushed off the government's role in the CBI functioning. "The government has neither any role nor any control over the developments taking place in the investigations taking place in 2G spectrum scam," he added.
 
 But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had a field day in targeting the Congress as the supplementary chargesheet came on a day when Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi, former chief of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee, was arrested by the CBI on corruption charges.
 
 "The 60 percent shareholder (in the Kalaignar TV) Dayalu Ammal has not been named. We wonder if there was political pressure on CBI... Has there been political bargaining, a political threat that there will be withdrawal of some UPA (United Progressive Alliance) ministers," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said.
 
 The DMK’s arch rival, the AIADMK, said the entire family of Karunanidhi should be chargesheeted.
 
 AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa said in a statement: “…the Rs.214 crore paid by (Shahid) Balwa was a clear bribe to Karunanidhi. The beneficiaries of the bribe, if the CBI had not filed a case, would have been the entire Karunanidhi family. As such, the interests of justice would be served only if all the members of the Karunanidhi family, starting with the patriarch himself, are named in the charge sheet."
 
 Kalaignar TV, promoted by Karunanidhi’s second wife M.K. Dayalu Ammal, and his daughter Kanimozhi by third wife Rajathi came under the CBI scanner for receiving Rs.214 crore from Cineyug Films which is connected to Shahid Usman Balwa of Swan Telecom.
 
 In Chennai, T.K.Rangarajan, member of parliament belonging to Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said the move has come a little late.
 
 According to him at the centre the Congress knows how to manage the numbers and will not be bothered much even if DMK withdraws support to the UPA government.

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