Kanimozhi: Meteoric rise and quick slide

To date, 43-year-old Kanimozhi’s claim to fame was that she was the daughter of DMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi. However, after April 25, she would be also known A Raja’s accomplice in the multi-crore 2G telecom spectrum scam.

Comparatively a greenhorn in politics, Kanimozhi hogged limelight in 2007 when she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. And life has come full circle for Kanimozhi who played an instrumental role in launching Kalaignar TV. Today, the channel has become the root cause of all her troubles.

Till not long ago, she had restricted herself to cultural and literary activities. For a short while she was also a journalist, with a stint as a sub-editor in ‘The Hindu’, Chennai. Later, she married businessman Athipan Bose. However, the union ended in divorce. Subsequently, she married Aravindan, a Tamil from Singapore, and the two have a son named Adithya.

“She is a new recruit to politics from the Karunanidhi family and there is nothing significant about her,” Cho Ramaswamy, political commentator, told DNA.

Observers said politics was never her forte. She was fairly regular at literary meets and also penned poems. The Karunanidhi family-owned newspapers and periodicals provided a platform for her literary pursuits. “She is a mediocre poet. I am yet to see a good work of poetry from her,” said PK Sreenivasan, former editor, India Today who had translated two of her collections of poems into Malayalam.

In 2007 she launched the Tamil Sangamam, an annual event to promote Tamil culture, tribal arts and traditions. However, even this fetched her only controversies. The Sangamam was believed to have received Rs50 lakh from one of the companies that later benefited from the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Opposition AIADMK has alleged that government money was used to promote Kanimozhi. Tamil Maiyam, an NGO associated with the Tamil Sangamam of which Kanimozhi is one of the directors, was raided by the CBI last year

When Karunanidhi launched Kalaignar TV in an attempt to neutralise the Sun Network, Kanimozhi was reported to have obtained all clearances from Delhi by relying on co-accused A Raja, then telecom minister. Dayalu Ammal, Karunanidhi’s second wife, owns 60% of Kalaignar TV equity while Kanimozhi and Sarat Kumar, a media professional, hold 20% each.

When the UPA-II government was formed in 2009, Karunanidhi sought a cabinet berth for Kanimozhi and for her half-brother Alagiri. But Sonia Gandhi was reluctant to accommodate two from the same family, so Kanimozhi had to make way for A Raja.

Today, Kanimozhi’s association with Kalaignar TV has become the root cause of all her problems because of the Rs214 crore it received from Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables and Cineyug Films, sister concerns of DB Reality, a major beneficiary of 2G Spectrum allocation.

However, on Monday after being named as co-accused in the 2nd charge sheet filed by the CBI, she put up a brave front. “We will face the case in the court. It is for the judiciary to decide whether one is wrongdoer or not,” she said.