On a three-day visit to Tamil Nadu recently, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi did not meet DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi. While both the DMK and the Congress quickly downplayed the inadvertent cold shoulder to the ailing Chief Minister, the political subtext was not missing as it, in a way, reflected the changing power equations within the UPA.

That the DMK’s stock has gone down — it began with the party not getting the portfolios of its choice and the number of Cabinet berths it wanted — could be gauged from the changed profile of its ministers. With his image battered after the Spectrum row, Telecom Minister A Raja is lying low this time around while Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran is not his usual flamboyant self either. Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers M K Alagiri, meanwhile, seems to have been reduced to an “inconsequential” minister.

Unlike in UPA-I, there is no elbow room left for Raja. While there is a junior minister (MoS Gurdas Kamat) this time, Raja had virtually no role in fixing the base price for 3G Spectrum auction as it was done by the GoM.

Caught in the Karunanidhi family politics, Maran is treading very cautiously while his underlying tension with Karunanidhi’s son, Alagiri, continues.

All this despite the fact that the DMK registered an impressive performance in the Lok Sabha polls and its brigade in Delhi is being led by no less than Alagiri. In fact, with the “politically sharp” T R Baalu absent this time, all eyes were on Alagiri who was expected to be the dynasty’s flagbearer in Delhi and the eyes of ears of Karunanidhi.

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