When the Maran brothers-owned Tamil daily Dinakaran published a survey on the best performing Union Ministers from the State in 2007, the present Union Telecom Minister, A Raja, was relegated to “others” — a group of nine who together garnered an abysmal one per cent public support — while his predecessor, Dayanidhi Maran, led with a 64 per cent approval rating.

A few weeks later, Maran resigned as Minister, soon after another political survey published in Dinakaran named Stalin as DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s likely successor. Maran was replaced by none other than Raja, allegedly chosen for his loyalty to the Karunanidhi family.

In the two years since, Raja has gone on to become one of the most powerful men outside the Karunanidhi family from the state. While his continuation in the Union Ministry in UPA-II had delayed the formation of the Cabinet, the CBI raids at telecom offices in connection with the spectrum scam has put a question mark over the DMK’s continuation in the government at the Centre.

When the scam broke last year, Karunanidhi had strongly resisted any probe, maintaining that the Minister had obtained prior sanction from the Prime Minister in the spectrum allocation and that some people “do not want Raja, a Dalit, to be a Minister”.

If evaluated in terms of the traditional trajectory specific to the functioning of the DMK, Raja’s rise to power has been rapid. He secured a ticket to Parliament in 1996, at the young age of 33, and went on to record a hattrick win from Perambalur constituency.

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