BJP continues its attack on DMK, INDIA
Update: 2024-01-17 14:59 GMT
Chennai: BJP State President K Annamalai released yet another audio tape on Wednesday, in continuation of the campaign that he had launched against the DMK with a view to besmirching the entire INDIA coalition, alleging manipulation of the CBI enquiry during the 2G probe that saw ‘witnesses prepped, cornered, threatened.’
Close on the heels of his yanking open the Pandora’s Box once again by coming up with the ‘DMK Files -3.0’ on January 14 by releasing an old audio tape, in which DMK leader T R Baalu and the then state intelligence chief M S Jaffar Sait are heard discussing about the 2G case, Annamalai uploaded yet another audio clip in his X account, of a conversation between former Union Minister A Raja with Jaffar Sait.
In the tape, Raja explains how things had been fixed with the CBI to handle the case softly and everything was progressing in the right direction. Raja also says that he would not be questioned in a harsh manner and that had been fixed with the help of Bombay people, which suggests that the investigations would be turned into a farce.
Though the verdict on the 2G scam was pronounced long ago and Raja was absolved of the charges against him, the raking up of the issue with purported evidence suggesting that the investigation itself was manipulated could put the DMK and along with it the INDIA coalition in the docks during the elections.
As the BJP had planned to defame the INDIA coalition more than the DMK in the State through the DMK Files-3.0, the X post of Annamalai had found more traction in upcountry media than in the State, where the first episode of the conversation between Baalu and Sait did not make any impact mainly because of the Pongal holidays.
Immediately after uploading the tape in his X account on Pongal Day when most newspapers were closed, Annamalai made an announcement about it at a public event organized by a news magazine. But the public reaction to it was insipid as people felt that they knew all that when the 2G scam was raging in the media and outside of it with Raja and others even lodged in Tihar jail.
Yet the second tape was released with the hope that the people could be made to believe that the then UPA government, led by the Congress, had not done the investigations properly. Also the DMK Files-3.0, like the two earlier ‘exposes’ under DMK Files One and DMK Files Two, aimed to target mainly Chief Minister M K Stalin and his family as the visuals in the introduction of the tape would vouch for.
The DMK Files One actually listed the assets of the various top DMK leaders and also the family members of the Chief Minister, while the second part spoke about benami assets. Now through the third part, Annamalai threatens to reveal a dozen conversations between key people on various issues.
Though last April saw DMK leaders filing defamation suits against Annamalai after their names were dragged into the controversy, with no specific movement in the legal process, the latest file attacks the coalition that will be fighting the BJP at the national level in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Annamalai’s claim is that it will expose the corrupt nature of INDIA, which ‘held a different name between 2004-14.’