Son rises as the Sun sets

It's bizarre. It happens only in Tamil Nadu.

You can have any kind of election exit polls. But, if a Tamil newspaper Dinakaran (that is part of the Sun group), owned by the grand nephew of Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi dare does a poll on the political heir to MK, then there is serious trouble. After all, MK has three wives (one of them is dead). He has one son out of the first wife. Then there are three sons and one daughter from the second wife (Dayalu Ammal). From the third wife he has one daughter, Kanimozhi who has been declared as his literary heir.

When the poll puts, MK Stalin, way ahead of elder brother and otherwise non-entity MK Azhagiri, all hell breaks loose. Azhagiri's goons set fire to the newspaper office in Madurai. Three people die, but the state takes no action on the goons.

Yes, it asks Union communcations and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran, whose brother Kalanidhi Maran owns the Sun group to resign from the Union cabinet. That after, Dayanidhi Maran was instrumental in getting a string of telecom multinationals to invest in India and Tamil Nadu in particular.

In this case, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has simply no power over his ministers. That's because the DMK is one of the key constituents of the ragtag that forms the UPA. Thus a otherwise successful minister has to give up his job because an old and ailing politician cannot control his errant sons. In case, Singh opposed the move, it is quite possible that the DMK will withdraw support to the government. In coalition politics, that is something that no Prime MInister would want.

So why did this happen? Well, while Karunanidhi's sons are non entities outside of Tamil Nadu, the Maran brothers had acquired almost global clout. At the end of the day, the father in Karunanidhi realised that his sons were going nowhere. So , is this a good way to remove one of the Maran brothers and teach them a lesson?

That remains to be seen. But, the big question is who will be the next communications minister? Will it be someone else from the DMK? Hopefully not Anbumani Ramadoss.