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DON'T UPSTAGE THE CROWN PRINCE
By COOMI KAPOOR
The swift rise and sudden downfall of Dayanidhi Maran should not come as a surprise to any one familiar with dynastic politics in India. The family retainer and confidant became too big for his boots. Maran had of course an advantage over most retainers. He was a close relative of DMK chief M Karunanidhi.
Maran complacently assumed that his grand uncle Karunanidhi had every reason to be pleased with him. He was making waves in the communication ministry. At his initiative, rates of local calls from all mobile phones were slashed to Re 1 and his achievement was hailed with the catchy slogan ‘India One’. The young and dynamic Maran changed the perception of the DMK politician in Delhi, with his natty suits and slickedback hair and business school jargon. Back in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi’s real heirs, sons MK Stalin and MK Azhagiri, may have begun to feel that they were looking like country cousins in comparison.
As the family’s representative in Delhi Maran mixed on equal terms with the leadership of the UPA. He was propelled to the role, following the illness and subsequent death of his father Murasoli Maran, Karunanidhi’s trusted emissary in Delhi. The firsttime MP was sworn in as a full minister and given the prized portfolio of com munication and information technology even though there was a clear conflict of interest. The Maran family owns the Sun media empire, which includes cable networks, television and DTH service providers.
In contrast, Maran’s cousins had to go up the political ladder the hard way. Stalin was imprisoned during the Emergency when he was only 24. Jayalalithaa, whenever she is in power, makes it a point to register corruption cases against him, and the former mayor of Chennai has been jailed frequently. Azhagiri, an organisation man like Stalin, was once even expelled from the party by his father.
Resentment of the Maran brothers among the Karunanidhi clan has been fuelled by the enormous success of their Sun media empire, which is run by Maran’s brother Kalanidhi Maran. When the Sun TV group started with assistance from the DMK, the primary purpose was to ensure that the party was adequately projected in the media. But with canny management by Kalanidhi and government patronage at the state and the Centre, it has become a huge financial success. The group has a near monopoly in the cable network in Tamil Nadu, thanks to its political clout and muscle power. Not even Jayalalithaa could clip the wings of the Sumangali cable network. The balance sheet of the Sun group indicates it is among the most profitable TV channels in the country. In fact, Sun TV’s offices on the first and second floors of the DMK building dwarf the party office on the ground floor.
News of the recent Rs 236 crore purchase of two Bombardier Challenge aircraft by the Sun group may well have added to the Karunanidhi clan’s envy. It was rumoured that the Marans were thinking of starting an airline. Others wondered how the Marans could adopt the lifestyle of corporate czars while being identified with the pro-poor DMK party. DMK workers grumbled that nothing of the Maran family’s wealth seemed to find its way into the party’s coffers.
Though the resentment had been building for several months, the controversial poll carried by the family owned Dinakaran newspaper on the relative popularity of DMK leaders after Karunanidhi set the proverbial cat among the pigeons. Stalin, Karunanidhi’s official heir, was given a rating of 70 per cent, but the hotheaded elder son Azhagiri got a mere 2 per cent. Other unnamed candidates, which most assumed meant Maran, garnered 20 per cent of the vote. That was enough for Azhagiri to let loose his goons on the Dinakaran building. Karunanidhi has always sided with Stalin against his elder brother, but in getting rid of the interloper who had set his sights too high the entire clan was united.
Ejected out of the government, a shaken Maran has made clear that he still considers himself a loyal soldier of the DMK. But with feelings against him running high, it is not merely his political career which may be in the doldrums; the Maran family’s business empire could well be in trouble. Maran should have learnt a lesson from fellow MPs in other family-controlled political parties. It does not do to overshadow the crown prince. It is striking that young, personable, up and coming MPs in the Congress — from Jyotiraditya Scindia to Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora — make it a point to quote Rahul Gandhi and even then not one of them has been inducted as a junior minister. After the UP poll debacle, seasoned and successful Congress MPs and sundry party spokespersons on TV bent over backward to make clear that they may be lacking in wisdom and experience, but Rahul Gandhi was certainly in no way responsible for the Congress’s woeful performance. As Congress MPs know full well, the family gives and the family takes away.
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