By IANS,
New Delhi : Soon after resigning as textiles minister, Dayanidhi Maran, the latest political heavyweight under the scanner in the 2G spectrum scandal, was closeted with party colleagues and was due to fly to Chennai later.
Among whose with him at his 6 Akbar Road residence were Minister of State for Finance S.S. Palanimanickam, Minister of State for Health S. Gandhiselvan and Lok Sabha member A.K.S. Vijayan — all from the DMK.
Leaving his residence later, the trio declined to speak to waiting reporters outside. Maran had submitted his resignation after attending a cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He was India’s communications minister between May 26, 2004 and May 13, 2007.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told the Supreme Court Wednesday that as communications minister he allegedly created a situation forcing non-resident entrepreneur Sivasankaran to sell his stake in Aircel to Malaysia’s Maxis group.
The Maran family owns the Sun TV network. The empire, in which Dayanidhi’s brother Kalanithi is chairman, has interests in running channels, programming, films, newspaper and also recently airlines, after acquiring budget carrier SpiceJet.
Maxis, which is considered close to the Marans, allegedly bought 74 percent stake in Aircel after which it was allotted more circles to operate its telecom services in the country. Maxis also allegedly invested around Rs.600 crore in Sun’s DTH project.