Manmohan finally pulls the plug, Maran quits

NEW DELHI: The ill-fated Telecom Ministry claimed one more DMK wicket on Thursday: that of Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran. The minister’s resignation became a fait accompli after the CBI in its 2G status report to the Supreme Court severely indicted him in a 2006 telecom case.The agency in its status report on the 2G probe told the apex court on Wednesday that it has enough evidence to show that Maran had indeed used his position as Telecom Minister in the UPA-I Cabinet to browbeat a telecom promoter, C Sivasankaran, into selling his stake in Aircel to Malaysian firm Maxis to bring benefit to his own family business.In another serious misuse of position, also pending with the CBI, Maran had ille­gally taken multiple telepho­ne connections for his reside­nce, to facilitate transmissio­ns for Sun TV, owned by his brother Kalanidhi Maran.But even when his position became untenable after the CBI report, Maran did not go easily. It took a direct intervention from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to get him to put in his papers.According to high-level sources, the decision to ask Maran to quit the Union Cabinet was taken at a meeting held between Prime Minister Singh and the Congress president Sonia Gandhi, on Wednesday night. In this late night meeting, which was also attended by Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, the top duo was apprised of the CBI’s findings.In any case, it was this kind of formal charges from the CBI that they was waiting for to get Maran out of the Cabinet, sources said.On Thursday, around 9.30 am, the PM himself put a call to Maran asking him to resign. Making a last ditch attempt, Maran asked for another audience from the PM, which was granted.Though too late in the day to show propriety, Maran turned up for Thursday’s cabinet meeting 15 minutes late to skip the discussion on the first item on the agenda—the FM radio expansion proposal. To avoid ‘conflict of interest’, since his family is heavily into FM radio business, Maran even made an effort to wait outside when the issue finally came up for discussion.A tense and sulking Maran later confided to a few Cabinet colleagues that it was his last day in the government.It was at this point, sources said, he went to have a word with the PM and asked for a month’s time to “legally prove that he was being implicated” and was “not in the wrong”. But, sources said, the PM firmly refused to allow him to continue.It was then that Maran drove back home to write his resignation, with which he landed back in the PM’s residence around 2 pm. According to sources, even a “very senior UPA ally” call­ed up DMK chief M Karunan­idhi to advise him that Mara­n should not delay his exit.Neither the PMO nor Rash­trapati Bhavan confirmed Maran’s resignation till this newspaper went to press. However, by all indications Maran’s resignation has been accepted, a senior Cabinet Minister said.