This Article is From Dec 22, 2010
DMK to defend Raja at rallies, meetings
Chennai: As A Raja headed to Delhi to be interrogated by the CBI, his party in Chennai announced that it will back the former Telecom Minister who is at the centre of the country's largest-ever swindle, the2G scam.
Mr Raja's party, the DMK, has named its with-Raja-for-Raja movement the "Truth About Spectrum Campaign." It will consist of public meetings and rallies which will be addressed by senior party leaders TR Baalu, Durai Murugan, and Union Minister Jagathratchagan.
The meetings, will cover among other places, Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli and Cuddalore between December 24 and 30.
Mr Raja - blamed for causing the government losses worth 1.76 lakh crores by the government's auditor - will be projected as a hero whose policies on mobile licences made it easy and cheap for Indians to use cellphones.
''How long can the DMK watch these stories build by the media and opposition parties? Now we will expose them. We will tell you in due course what the myth of the spectrum scam is,'' said T K S Ilangovan, the party's spokesperson.
DMK chief M Karunanidhi has warned that Mr Raja will be thrown out, if he is found guilty of deliberately undervaluing 2G spectrum to favour companies who were ineligible for the telecom sector. But elections in Tamil Nadu are just four months away. And the accusations against Mr Raja have been grabbed by Opposition leader J Jayalalithaa to accuse the ruling DMK of tireless corruption.
The DMK's aggressive support for Raja is likely to worry its ally, the Congress, which has been trying to stave off a massive attack by the Opposition on the 2G scam.
Today, the BJP and its allies held a massive rally in Delhi -they say they will launch their own public campaign which will target the Prime Minister for permitting corruption within the UPA government.
Mr Raja's homes and offices were raided recently by the CBI, along with those of his friends and business associates. The CBI says incriminating documents were recovered. So the DMK's attempts to portray Mr Raja as a visionary and a pioneer couldn't be worse-timed as far as the Centre is concerned.