DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi may have paid the political price but the long arm of law is yet to reach him and his immediate clan. Yet, the party can’t breathe easy as the ruling AIADMK continues to keep the heat on the DMK’s first family. If the 2G spectrum scam hangs like a mill-stone around the party’s neck, other cases like land grabbing have painted the Dravidian big brother into a corner. For cases exposing the Karunanidhi clan’s alleged excesses when the DMK was in power explode on the public domain with an alarming regularity, one after the other, giving no respite to the octogenarian.
Last fortnight, the Central Crime Branch Police arrested one Uma Maheswari (53), a close relative of Selvi, the elder daughter of DMK president, on the charge of usurping a prime land of a charitable trust in the upmarket Nungambakkam area of the city. She was remanded and lodged in prison. This followed a complaint from Ethis Gupta, treasurer of the trust, and others.
The 20 ground (1 ground = 2400 sq ft) land belonging to the trust is said to be valued over Rs 100 crore and in 2006, Uma Maheswari, along with her accomplices had threatened the trust to sell 14 grounds for a paltry Rs 8 crore but paid only Rs 1.7 crore. When the complainants asked for rest of the amount, they were threatened that the remaining portion of the land too would be taken away. Later, the land thus taken was sold to a builder by Uma Maheswari. If this was not enough, police received another land grab complaint against her from the same locality last week.
These are not isolated instances as they bear the stamp of similar cases of land grabbing during the previous DMK regime. And this is not the first time that the ‘K-clan’ has come under cloud. Even before the regime change in 2011, the DMK had to confront the Spectrum Scam and the land grabbing charges against the DMK satraps coupled with the high handedness of the party functionaries did the party in.
After assuming charge, Jayalalithaa continued to pile up the heat against the DMK and by cracking the whip on the DMK and as promised during the election campaign set up special cells in the police to deal with such cases. Barring a few, the top brass of the DMK were hauled up. Though there is slackness in pursuing those cases in earnest, fresh complaints started pouring in, this time against the members of the Karunanidhi clan. The DMK’s heir apparent M K Stalin’s son, Udhayanidhi Stalin, came under cloud after a trust filed a police complaint accusing him, among others, of being hand in glove in usurping its prime property in Villivakkam area of the city.
For his part, M K Alagiri, the former Union Minister is facing the charge of encroaching public land in the construction of the Daya Engineering College by a family-run trust. The former District Collector had served summons on him and his wife, Kanthi Alagiri. The case is now before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court. Further, the Daya IT Park, of his son Durai Dayanidhi, is also facing similar charges and the Madurai Corporation is engaged in the process of recovering the government land on which the building stands. Durai is also a prime accused in the multi-crore illegal granite mining scam.
Needless to say, the patriarch’s favourite daughter Kanimozhi facing the spectrum scam is fighting for her political survival. No wonder, each faction in the K-Clan is having its cup of woes in full.
-The Sunday Standard