Drop Raja from Cabinet, AIADMK urges Manmohan

Exasperated over Raja still continuing in the Cabinet “somewhat shamelessly”, even after the CBI has initiated investigations into the spectrum allocation for 2G cellular services during the previous UPA regime and raiding the offices of the Department of Telecommunication (DoT), the AIADMK’s General Council sought his removal without any further delay.

Wondering why the DMK President and Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi was still mum over the CBI raids in offices under the purview of the Telecom Minister, the AIADMK’s top policy making body, presided by the party supremo, Jayalalitha, in a key political resolution called upon Singh to “drop” Raja from the Cabinet “to enable a free and fair investigation” by the CBI in this case.

The AIADMK’s Executive and General Council meeting, concluded late this evening amid the roads leading to its venue choked with vehicular traffic. It turned worse after the first showers of the North-East Monsoon rains lashed the city.

The AIADMK adopted 19 resolutions but effected no major changes in party positions.
This resolution, recalling the various corruption charges against the DMK, including those enquired by the Sarkaria Commission in the 1970s’, also accused the Chief Minister’s elder son and another Union Minister, M K Azhagiri, “of misusing his public office for self-enrichment”. But the spectrum scam under Raja’s tenure as Telecom Minister was ‘unprecedented’ with loss to the National exchequer estimated at “nearly Rs one lakh crores,” the AIADMK’s resolution alleged.