The DMK decision to pull out from the UPA and give only issue-based support to it appears to have come at a crucial juncture as far as the on-going CBI probe into the 2G spectrum scam is concerned. For the investigating agency was all set to grill Kanimozhi, the daughter of DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi who is also a Rajya Sabha MP.
While former DMK minister in the Union Cabinet A. Raja who held the telecom portfolio is already behind bars in connection with the 2G scam, the CBI is all set to also question his wife, M.A. Parameswari as part of its probe. CBI sources said that both would be called for questioning by the agency before it files its charge-sheet by the March 31 deadline. Ms Kanomozhi is likely to be questioned by the agency about the `200 crore loan which was reportedly given by Shahid Balwa’s Swan Telecom (now Etisalat-DB Telecom Private Ltd)—he too is in jail now—to Kalaignar TV. The Chennai-based channel is allegedly owned by Kanomozhi and some family members of Karunanidhi, CBI sources said. The agency had raided the office of Kalaignar TV on February 18. “The TV channel, however, maintained that the payment was meant to be an investment that was returned after a difference in evaluation over equity. The agency wants to question Kanomozi over this. She will also be confronted with certain documents which were recovered by the agency during searches,” sources said.
As for Mr Raja’s wife, M.A. Parameswari, she was on the board of directors of a company in which her husband allegedly made huge investments shortly after he became a minister in UPA-I. Mr Raja allegedly invested in the Chennai-based Green House promoters which was formed barely four months after he took charge as the minister for environment and forests in May 2004. Three years later, in February 2007 his wife, Ms Parameswari, joined the company’s board as a director.