Though it was on the cards for a few weeks, part of the credit for the purge of the errant ministers, who had been in the wrong in different ways, should go to chief minister M.K. Stalin
The stepping down of two key members of the Tamil Nadu Cabinet, K. Ponmudy and V. Senthilbalaji, bowing to judicial interventions and paving the way for a ministerial reshuffle, is a welcome development that will go a long way in upholding ethical values in a true democratic fashion. Though it was on the cards for a few weeks, part of the credit for the purge of the errant ministers, who had been in the wrong in different ways, should go to chief minister M.K. Stalin. For unlike some past instances connected with other leaders hauled up by courts, Stalin did not try to shield his ministerial colleagues though one of them is an old warhorse rooted in Dravidian tradition and the other a flamboyant modern-day go-getter of the party.
Though Ponmudy, who was sentenced to three years jail in a corruption case and has gone on appeal against the order, and Senthilbalaji, on bail in a case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), have been already under serious judicial scrutiny, they were continuing as state ministers. It was only natural that the long arm of the law suddenly struck them in different forms.
Ponmudy was pulled up suo motu by the Madras high court for his indiscreet comments at a meeting that denigrated women and also the Hindu religious sects of Vaishnavites and Shaivites while Senthilbalaji was told by the Supreme Court that he was freed on bail not to facilitate his occupation of the high office of a minister.
Without raising needless objections to the courts’ observations in the political arena, bucking the modern trend of questioning judicial pronouncements in the public sphere and seeking to paint them as going against legislative freedom, the ministers bowed to the court orders with their party, too, encouraging the decision. However, the former ministers and the DMK could have avoided such situations in which the court had to give either a deadline for deciding between freedom and ministerial post or to order the police to take cognisance of the words of an education minister.
Senthilbalaji’s alleged offence of money laundering is of such serious nature that the DMK leadership could have avoided his reinstatement into the Cabinet after he came out of jail and Ponmudy, as a senior leader of the Dravidian movement, should have exercised restraint and not been flippant and vulgar.
The faux pas of the former minister might have gone unnoticed but for the proliferation of social media that dug out the video after a few days of the actual occurrence and sent him scurrying for cover. Similarly, if Senthilbalaji had waited to clear himself of all charges levelled by the ED and not been spotted under the klieg lights revelling in a position of power after obtaining bail, the latest setback to his political career could have been averted.
The developments in Tamil Nadu have come as a balm to the wounded souls in the country that grudge the loss of ethical values in public life, which, we now know, have not vanished completely.
