Tamil Nadu has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the run-up to the 2024 general election with the Enforcement Directorate arresting a serving minister in a corruption case that is at least eight years old and chief minister M.K. Stalin throwing his weight behind the accused minister.
By Wednesday night, the theatre of confrontation had widened with the DMK government withdrawing the general consent to the CBI to carry out investigations in the state, joining a list of non-BJP-ruled states that had done so earlier.
The ED arrested V. Senthil Balaji, 47, the Tamil Nadu minister for electricity and excise, around 2am on Wednesday after searches and interrogation that stretched for 18 hours in several places, including the state secretariat in Chennai.
The case deals with allegations that jobs were given in exchange for cash when Balaji, who is now with the ruling DMK, was transport minister in 2011-15 when the AIADMK, now a BJP ally, was in power in the state.
The ED, probing money-laundering charges in the case, said in its custody papers that alleged unaccounted cash deposits worth about Rs 1.60 crore were made in the bank accounts of Balaji and his wife.
After his arrest, Balaji complained of chest pain and was admitted to a government hospital in Chennai. He underwent a coronary angiogram and was advised bypass surgery at the earliest as the test revealed three blocks in blood vessels, state health minister Ma. Subramanian said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Balaji was remanded in judicial custody till June 28 under dramatic circumstances after Justice Alli, Chennai principal district and sessions judge, visited the accused at the Government Omandurar Hospital to take a decision on the ED’s remand application filed in her court.
Balaji has sought interim bail while the ED has asked for police custody of the minister. The court reserved its orders on both pleas.
Earlier, TV footage showed Balaji grimacing and crying while being brought to the hospital on a stretcher — a scene reminiscent of the way in which police had whisked away M. Karunanidhi, the late DMK patriarch and the father of Stalin, when AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa was in power in June 2001.
An outraged Stalin, who is also the DMK president, and several of his senior cabinet colleagues visited Balaji at the cardiac ICU where he is being treated.
Stalin later tweeted: “What was the purpose of the ED to torture Minister Senthil Balaji to the point of him getting chest pain even after he had said he would cooperate fully with the investigation? Is it necessary for the enforcement officers to act in a dehumanising manner in violation of legal procedures?”
Iterating that the DMK would not compromise on its ideological position, Stalin said the party would not be cowed down by such threats by the BJP using central investigative agencies against its political opponents. People will teach the BJP a lesson in the 2024 elections, Stalin added.
State BJP president K. Annamalai denied the DMK’s allegations and said the ED was only complying with court orders. Annamalai had lost the last Assembly elections from the Aravakuruchi constituency, close to Karur where Balaji holds sway.
Several Opposition leaders, including Stalin, are scheduled to meet in Patna on June 23 as part of a unity effort before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Among the Opposition leaders, Stalin has been the most vocal supporter of Rahul Gandhi.
Health minister Subramanian said the ruling BJP “is rattled" by the June 23 meeting and hence it was using agencies like the ED to demoralise the political parties in non-BJP ruled states.
Tamil Nadu has been beeping loud on the BJP radar after it lost its sole government in southern India when the Congress won the Karnataka elections.
