Call drop between DMK-Congress, post 2G

Spectrum waves scandal impacted on the DMK in a little over a year after CAG pegged the losses at Rs 1.76 lakh crore, the notional loss suffered by the central exchequer in the award of 2G licences during the tenure of then union Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja, who went on to be called “2G Raja” by the Opposition and critics alike. 

The DMK had to apportion 63 seats to Congress which parleyed for seats while Enforcement Directorate had grilled Karunanidhi’s family members in the case in 2011. From being a ruling party, the once formidable DMK was reduced to a 23-seat legislature party, even losing the principal Opposition party status to a relatively inexperienced Vijayakanth’s DMDK in May 2011 Assembly election, a few months after A Raja was sent to Tihar Jail in February 2011 in the 2G case. 

A week after suffering one of its worst drubbings in an Assembly election, the DMK’s first family received a jolt when the CBI Special Court turned down Kanimozhi’s bail and sent her to Tihar.

Heat radiated from the DMK to the Congress-led UPA government in the following year (2012) when courts heard petitions praying for making then Finance Minister P Chidambaram (Congress) a co-accused in the case, straining the nearly decade-long electoral partnership, established in 2004. The simmering discontent erupted in March 2013 when Karunanidhi pulled out of the UPA, eventually facing the ensuing 2014 Lok Sabha election without a national party.

The political divorce did not last long. Congress had warmed up to DMK in 2016, surprisingly, again snatching away an unbelievable 41 Assembly seats from DMK, more so when the BJP had routed the grand old party in the immediate past Lok Sabha poll. However, the 2G ghost returned to haunt the DMK-Congress combine again in 2016 as Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK disproved popular political punditry and formed a successive government. The corruption baggage on its back was so heavy that DMK had evaded 2G canards fired even in RK Nagar by- election. Even an isolated CPM had refused to share the dais with the DMK even while campaigning for the ‘Rising Sun’, which has passed from Karunanidhi to Stalin, but still struggles to wade off the spirit of spectrum.