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| Unprecedented event in Delhi's power corridors | | Gangster's widow is now PM's Ministerial colleague | |
BL KAK
NEW DELHI, May 21
As the coalition "dharma" has often been found to be inimical to good "karma", the UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh has ensured that a dead husband's sins do not visit his widow. In plain language, Delhi's vital North Block, under the compulsions of coalition "dharma", has had to accept Radhika Selvi, widow of a gangster, as Minister of State for Home Affairs.
Radhika Selvi, new face of the DMK has been inducted as Minister of State for Home in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s. The recently widowed Radhika campaigned in Tamil Nadu with a newborn baby under a blazing sun and was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 with a big margin.
The 31-year-old politician, who has studied only up to Class 10 but mentions in her profile that she is a javelin thrower and a kabaddi player, will make an entry into the high echelons of government at a time when DMK’s Harvard-trained Dayanidhi Maran resigned as Union Minister for Comunications and Information Technology following a feud in party patriarch Muthuvel Karunanidhi’s family.
As she was administered the oath by President APJ Abdul Kalam at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, life seems to have taken a dramatic and unforeseen turn for Radhika Selvi who had in August 2001 married Pannayar Venkatesh, said to be a gangster with clout in the southern districts as well as Chennai, capital of Tamil Nadu. When Selvi’s name was floated as DMK’s choice as new addition in the Union Council of Ministers, many, including the Ministers and top bureaucrats, were curious to know who she was.
“Who is she? Does she come to Parliament often,” asked a Minister. Radhika Selvi, a backbencher amidst the other MPs from her State in the Lok Sabha, was not at all a known face in the Parliament corridors. In September 2003, Venkatesh was pulled out of his flat and killed by police even as his pregnant wife and neighbours watched. Hailing from a well-off Nadar family in Tuticorin district, Venkatesh was wanted in more than 20 criminal cases, including extortion and holding of kangaroo courts.
His killing was said to have angered the Nadar community. The Nadar factor is important, as by promoting Radhika Selvi to the Union Cabinet, DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Karunanidhi, has tried to appease the community while also putting in place actor Sarath Kumar, a former member of the party. The DMK has been having trouble for the last few years from Sarath Kumar, who is a Nadar leader. Just before the May 2006 Assembly elections, he had switched to the rival AIADMK' headed by Karunanidhi's bete noire, Jayalalitha.
Soon after the DMK won the Assembly polls, he and his wife quit the AIADMK and attempted to return to his former party. Unsuccessful, Sarath Kumar recently announced a new political party for the Nadars. Radhika Selvi is said to be close to Rajathi Ammal, Karunanidhi’s wife, who too comes from the Nadar community. The DMK has thus tried to kill two birds with one stone by pushing Selvi.
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