Aditi Phadnis: Gas leaks don't hurt

PLAIN POLITICS

Dismissing Baalu would be seen as Jayalalithaa's victory, so he was spared.

Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi has spoken. Shipping and Transport Minister TR Baalu is innocent, she has said, and there is no need for him to resign. Her father, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, has echoed his daughter, suggesting the cloud on Baalu's future has lifted, at least for the present.

The government's account of Baalu's alleged misdemeanours would suggest he is more sinned against than sinning, in this case at least. Yes, he might not have paid for gas contracted for his son's companies during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime when he was a minister, said a DMK activist, tongue in cheek, but he is paying for it now. The fact is the whole case is mired in court cases and not only has no contract been signed between Gail, which is to supply the gas, and the two companies, Kings India Chemicals Corporation and Kings India Power Corporation, but the two companies have not received a single cubic metre of gas. The unkindest cut of all is that the original order of a single judge, that the companies should get the gas, was never implemented and the Baalu family went to court charging contempt!

However, this is not the only case against Baalu. The other charge is that Meenam Fisheries, a trawling and fishing company in which Baalu's two wives and sons have shares (this was mentioned in the affidavit filed with the Election Commission when he became a candidate for the south Madras constituency) will benefit from the Sethusamudram project that Baalu is pushing resolutely "" allegedly because the project will cut the travel time from Port Blair to Kakinada by offering a more direct route for sea food export, precisely the business Meenam Fisheries is engaged in.

The project has acquired a saffron hue with the BJP charging that Sethusamudram would destroy the Ram Sethu, the original mythical bridge that linked India and Lanka. Environmentalists are angry because they say Sethusamudram will destroy marine life and render the region even more prone to cyclones and compound the devastation caused by future tsunamis. As one lakh fisherfolk are part of the south Madras constituency and all of them voted for Baalu in the last election, any rumour that moves by Baalu could cause more tsunamis in the future will influence them profoundly.

All of this is proving to be a source of great pressure for the minister, and DMK cadres opposed to him are watching on with great delight. Never a frontrunner DMK leader, he is likely to be pushed even more into the background. There was a time DMK cadres thought he would be the one to succeed Murasoli Maran as Karunanidhi's Man Friday in Delhi. Baalu was respectful towards and highly regarded by Rajathi, one of Karunanidhi's two wives who is also Kanimozhi's mother. He was Chennai District Secretary of the DMK for 15-odd years and later contested the south Madras Lok Sabha seat for the first time in 1991 (he lost), but won it consistently for the next three elections.

But then Murasoli Maran died and his son Dayanidhi became the DMK's man in Delhi, coordinating between Karunanidhi, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh. DMK workers say, rather sarcastically, that beautiful of face, imaginative and intelligent, and backed by economic power, a good speaker in Tamil, English and Hindi, Dayanidhi used to call Manmohan Singh 'uncle' and Sonia Gandhi 'auntie'. As this relationship should have been restricted to the Karunanidhi family, he became much more Sonia Gandhi's minister than Karunanidhi's. As the Karunanidhi-Maran relationship headed for the skids, once again, party workers thought Baalu's fortunes might be on the ascendant.

This didn't happen. A Raja became the chosen one. A Dalit with no particular claim to political leadership, Raja suited the DMK much better than Baalu, a Thevar, one of Tamil Nadu's militant middle castes. Raja was in Kanimozhi's thrall and she supported him because of her conviction that Dalits, minorities, feminists and environmental activists deserve to be supported. Considered a powerful Dalit writer who has read Mao and Marx in the original and has a book of poetry to his credit, Raja need not have been deferential to Kanimozhi, but he was, and continues to be.

It didn't help Baalu that initially no one in the DMK tried to intercede on his behalf when the gas matter became public. Today, the party is a cauldron of colliding ambitions of the Karunanidhi progeny. To survive, it is important to be part of a group. Baalu found he was no longer part of any recognisable group. In his own village of Vadacheri near Thanjavur, he is viewed with disdain "" the village has given Tamil literature, cinema and music some powerful voices. Baalu was, villagers say, only a film distributor and financier.

So frankly, no one was going to shed a tear if the PM had, in the interest of probity and propriety, requested Karunanidhi to replace Baalu with someone else. The question is: who. Kanimozhi cannot be elevated to cabinet rank immediately. Asking Baalu to step down now would appear to be yielding to Jayalalithaa's demand. In a sense, to secure her place in the NDA, Jayalalitha has tossed a bone to the BJP and the name on that bone is Baalu's.

DMK cadres continue to assert that Kanimozhi could be part of the cabinet soon. The statement made by the government in Parliament saw the Congress defending the Prime Minister and the Left, the DMK's biggest allies, noncommittal on the minister's conduct. Baalu's options might be narrowing but for the moment, he has been saved by the bell.