Kanimozhi confident of coming clean

Kanimozhi’s association with ‘Tamil Maiyam’, the cultural outfit raided by the CBI on Wednesday, has brought in loads of controversy to the DMK. “We will come clean together and will prove that we are not wrong,” she said.

Speaking to reporters, she said a legal process was on and “we are not against that (CBI probe)…. I am very open to it and the DMK is very open to it”. She was optimistic that the turn of events would not affect her party’s ties with the Congress.

Amid charges that the non-profit organisation was suspected to be a conduit for kickbacks from the spectrum allocation scam when DMK’s A Raja was the Union telecom minister, a categorical refutation also came from the Tamil Maiyam during the day.

Fr Jegath Gaspar Raj, who founded the Tamil Maiyam that is into cultural activities including organising the annual Tamil folk-arts festival ‘Chennai Sangamam’, was not to be cowed down by the CBI raids. The outfit is a brain-child of Kanimozhi and she is one of its trustees.

Addressing a press conference here, Fr Jegath maintained that neither he nor the Tamil Maiyam was in any way connected to the 2G spectrum issue. The CBI team, after Wednesday’s search, has taken away the outfit’s accounts and copies of its communications with others.

Even as Fr Jegath’s press conference was in progress, allegations of Kanimozhi’s mother Rajathi Ammal being linked to a prime land deal in the heart of the city involving the Tatas fuelled a fresh row, prompting Rajathi Ammal to issue a clarification.

Refuting that she was part of a land deal through an aide, Rajathi Ammal said her information was the land in question on Anna Salai had been on lease with the Voltas company.