Will 2G verdict open the door for BJP-DMK rapprochement?

NEW DELHI: Though the acquittal of 2G accused is a setback to BJP as the party has made this a major issue against Congress, the verdict may open the door to a rapprochement with old ally DMK in terms of the potentially fluid political situation in Tamil Nadu.
Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited ailing DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi at his Chennai residence last month, there has been speculation about BJP opening options with DMK. The court observations indicting the PMO and its officials, provides some fodder for NDA to corner the Congress which has seen the acquittal of the 2G spectrum accused as a major reprieve.

DMK leader D Raja had claimed that he had kept then PM Manmohan Singh in the loop and blamed Congress for "failure" not to sense the "political conspiracy" to unsettle the government of the time. "It was regrettable that the government (at the Centre) itself was unable to figure out that the spectrum issue got caught in a conspiracy to defeat the UPA coalition government," Raja said on Friday.

Without specifying who was behind it, Raja fell short of naming the UPA, which had DMK as an ally when the spectrum issue surfaced. "It does not require extraordinary intelligence to understand that hegemonic forces which decided that it could no longer tolerate the national political clout of the DMK should have been there (behind the alleged conspiracy)," he said.

Raja's statement seems a veiled attack on the section of Congress leaders as he and others from the party had to resign from the Manmohan Singh ministry and were jailed later on the charge-sheet filed by CBI.

A section of BJP believes observations made by the judge puts a significant blame for irregularities on the PMO officials under Manmohan Singh as well.

Judge OP Saini has observed: "It was not A Raja, but Pulok Chatterjee, in consultation with T K A Nair, as he had suppressed the most relevant and controversial part of the letter of A Raja from the then Prime Minister."

CBI had alleged that Raja had misled Singh in his letters on several key issues related to the policy of grant of 2G spectrum licences, including 'first-come-first-served' and the cut-off date.

With spotlight shifting on PMO officials Pulok Chatterjee and TKA Nair from DMK leaders A Raja and Kanimozhi, BJP finds itself in a better position to consider alliance with DMK than AIADMK, which has disintegrated after demise of its founder J Jayalalitha.

BJP maintains that the CBI court order should not be seen in the light of political implications in Tamil Nadu politics.

"Prime Minister's visit to Karunanidhi was a courtesy call since the latter is not well for quite some time. And talking about new alliances in the state after the 2G verdict is also unfounded," maintained BJP's chief media coordinator, Anil Baluni.

BJP spokeperson GVL Narsimha Rao said the judgement is a scathing indictment of the Mannohan Singh's government and his office.

"Pulok Chatterjee who is known as the nominee of Sonia Gandhi in the PMO as private secretary is named in the judgement in 20 places and severely indicted in paras 1804 to 1806," said Rao.