Get rich quick
Delving deeper into the Karunanidhi clan’s get rich scheme, Jayalalitha asks you to infer Rajathi’s financial status from the new found wealth of her her “domestic servants”.
According to her, Saravanan, a sweeper in Royal Enterprises (a furniture showroom in Chennai owned by Rajathi) became her manager later. In that capacity he was involved in the sale of Voltas land on Anna Salai to a Malaysian. Rajathi and Kanimozhi have reacted to this earlier, saying Saravanan was a former employee. In other words, they were not accountable for his deeds. But Jayalalitha is relentless. Her statement says Daniel Samuel, an AC mechanic, was servicing ACs in Rajathi’s new home in CIT Colony in Chennai, but he owns a fleet of BMWs today.
There’s more, says Jayalalitha. Westgage Logistics, a shipping company jointly owned by Kanimozhi and her mother Rajathi; several educational institutions bought under benami names; and a Rs 4,000-crore five-star hotel chain that is coming up “in south India again” under benami names were all newly accumulated assets from the Spectrum proceeds.
And finally here’s the kicker. Genex Exim, a Chennai-based company registered with a share-capital of just Rs1 lakh, had 5.7 per cent shares worth Rs 380 crore in Swan Telecom (now Etisalat DB), one of the beneficiaries of Raja’s telecom largesse. Genex, says the statement, now belongs to the son of Syed Salahuddin of the ETA Group of companies, Dubai. The ETA Group got the contract to construct the new Assembly-cum-Secretariat complex as well as Anna Memorial Library at Kotturpuram. Do the math on what she is getting at!
It’s raining moolah
Despite what Jayalalitha alleges, the DMK says it needs public funds to help it fight the upcoming election. Karunanidhi kickstarted the drive last month by donating Rs 11 lakh soon after a meeting of party leaders. His son and deputy CM Stalin gave one lakh. So did finance minister Anbazhagan and law minister Durai Murugan. Ministers like Nehru, Arumugam and Panneerselvam gave Rs 5 lakh from their respective party units. The grand total after the two-hour meeting was Rs 44 lakhs. There’s nothing like swirling allegations that the opposition is emphasizing upon to prompt Karunanidhi to try and send a message that he has to wave a begging bowl to fight an election. Back in 2006 for the assembly poll and 2009 for the Lok Sabha elections, it was another story. The DMK was reluctant to mobilize funds thinking the party would get a bad name.