Congress to try again to get Raja out

As the pressure increases on the ruling Congress party over 2G-tainted telecom minister A Raja, who has the staunch support of his DMK party, a coalition ally, efforts are again on to get him to out after the Prime Minister returns from Seoul.

Kanimozhi, a DMK MP and also daughter of her party’s supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister, M Karunanidhi, met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the Congress trouble-manager, today. Raja is also said to enjoy the political patronage of Kanimozhi.

Top sources in the Congress told Business Standard the party had earlier tried to remove Raja when a Central Bureau of Investigation probe was ordered on the 2G controversy. On that occasion, Mukherjee had spoken to Karunanidhi, but in vain. Karunanidhi would not agree to removing Raja. Now, after the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) report slamming Raja’s role in the allocation of 2G spectrum, the Congress has a new handle to try and oust him.

But, top sources in the party admit, it wil not be easy. “It seems A Raja is indeed a raja (king),” remarked a top leader of the UPA coalition. “We have to respect coalition dharma,” said Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan.

The party has decided to try again to convince Karunanidhi to allow the UPA to remove Raja, if not entirely from the cabinet, then at least from the telecom portfolio. The Prime Minister, who returns from Seoul tomorrow, is unlikely to talk to Karunanidhi directly; someone else will do so.

The Congress is under renewed pressure to act after having removed Ashok Chavan and Suresh Kalmadi from the post of Maharashtra chief minister and a party post, respectively, on charges of misuse of office. And, the opposition BJP leadership has decided not to ease the pressure on the issue.

At the crux of the problem is the state assembly election in Tamil Nadu, due in summer next year. The Congress has an alliance with the DMK and neither wants to break it, although a few days earlier, Jayalalithaa, the chief of the rival Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK) had offered the Congress the chance to replace the DMK with her party. Both, Congress and DMK, know that neither can win the assembly election by themselves.

Meanwhile, Parliament was rocked for the second day today on the Raja issue, with the Opposition demanding his ouster and the Congress hitting back at the ‘Sangh Parivar’ over anti-Sonia Gandhi remarks by former RSS chief K S Sudarshan. The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha could not transact any business in the din, as members from both sides stormed the well of the two Houses.