In the early morning on June 13, when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials knocked at the doors of Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Senthil Balaji's residence, it was the first political move by the Centre against the ruling DMK in the state. The minister was arrested after 18 hours of interrogation by the agency. Clad in a black T-Shirt and jogging trousers, Balaji was seen lying in the rear seat of a car, holding his hand on his chest and crying in pain. Balaji’s arrest was part of an investigation in a cash-for-job scam case when he was the transport minister in the Jayalalithaa regime between 2011 and 2016. He was accused of taking bribes from the job aspirants and was subsequently dropped from the cabinet by Jayalalithaa in 2015.
Chief Minister and DMK leader M.K. Stalin called the ED action a “political vendetta” and said it was “an unprecedented move” by the agency to reach the chamber of a sitting minister at the state secretariat. A day later, after Balaji complained of chest discomfort and got admitted at a government hospital in Chennai, Stalin met him and enquired about his health. Sources said Stalin has promised Balaji that the party will stand by him.
A local court in Chennai on Wednesday sent Balaji to judicial custody till June 28. Sessions Court Principal Judge S. Alli visited the hospital where the minister was admitted this morning before passing the order.
Sources in the Tamil Nadu Health Department told THE WEEK that Balaji had high blood pressure. The medical bulletin said, “Senthil Balaji underwent Coronary Angiogram at 10.40 am on June 14, 2023. Coronary Angiogram revealed triple vessel disease, for which CABG-Bypass Surgery is advised at the earliest.”
Subsequently, Balaji filed a petition seeking permission to be shifted to a private hospital here for further treatment.
The ED's interrogation and subsequent arrest of Balaji came after the Supreme Court allowed a batch of petitions filed against him in a case of money laundering. A few weeks ago, the Income Tax department had conducted searches in over 40 locations linked to Balaji for nine days continuously.
The job racket case
The cash-for-job scam came to light in 2015 when Balaji was dropped from the erstwhile Jayalalithaa’s cabinet. A man named S. Devasahayam filed a complaint with the Central Crime Branch (CCB) in Chennai against a few functionaries in the transport department. He alleged that one Palani, a conductor at the transport department, demanded Rs 2,60,000 to get a job for his son at the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC). Though he payed the amount, his son didn't get the job. Devasahayam’s complaint had also named one Baskar, a junior assistant at the Saidapet Depot.
Based on his complaint, the CCB registered an FIR against Palani, Baskar, another person named Kesavan at the transport department and others.
Meanwhile, another victim of the scam also filed a complaint saying that he had paid Rs 2.31 lakh to then transport minister Senthil Balaji in the presence of Baskar, his brother Ashok Kumar and his brother-in-law Karthik. A few months later, another victim named Gopi also filed a complaint with the Chennai City Police Commissioner, saying he was also cheated in the job recruitment. Gopi also approached the Madras High Court which directed the CCB to investigate the case. In 2017, the CCB filed a report in the court saying the accused had collected a total of Rs 3.87 crores as bribes from several job aspirants and given it to Baskar.
During the investigation, Baskar allegedly admitted that he had taken the bribe, spent a portion of it in horse-racing and given the remaining to the junior staff in the transport department. The CCB named Baskar as the first accused in the case and filed the report.
In 2017, yet another person named V. Ganesh Kumar, an employee of the transport department, lodged a criminal complaint with CCB against four persons, including Balaji, stating that the minister instructed him to collect the money. In 2018, one more complaint was filed by K. Arulmani saying that Rs 40 lakh was collected from his friends who were looking for jobs in the transport department.
In the meantime, R.B. Arun, another victim, filed a petition in the high court saying he was not satisfied with the CCB probe. Justice M.S. Ramesh, who heard the case, ordered further probe into the involvement of higher officials in the transport department. Following this, three FIRs and two chargesheets were filed by the CCB in 2021 against 47 persons including Balaji, his brother Ashok Kumar, his brother-in-law Karthik, his former personal assistants Shanmugam, Karthikeyan and several other officials and staff of the transport department. The final report was filed in the high court in the last few days of the AIADMK government under Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
In 2022, Baskar died in mysterious circumstances. His mother Vimala filed a complaint at a police station in North Chennai and also handed over a letter which was found in Baskar’s bag. It was alleged that Baskar's death came as the investigating agency was planning to make him an approver in the case.
Later, a quash petition was filed in the case in the high court by Shanmugam, the third accused, who claimed that the money taken as bribe had been returned to the job aspirants. The high court quashed the case but the order was challenged in the Supreme Court. The top court allowed the appeals and on May 16, 2023 directed the ED to continue its probe into the charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It also granted the state police two months time to complete the investigation and submit its final report.
Who is Senthil Balaji?
While there were similar cash-for-job scams in Tamil Nadu earlier, Balaji’s became a curious case due to his political prowess and his shifting of political allegiance over a period of time. Balaji was one of the powerful ministers in Jayalalithaa’s cabinet and was her blue-eyed boy. In fact, Balaji was the only person in the AIADMK who could reach out directly to Jayalalithaa when she shut herself inside the Poes Garden residence after being convicted in a Disproportionate Assets (DA) case. Visuals of him offering prayers, lighting lamps and rolling on the floor of a temple for a favourable order for Jayalalithaa in the DA case are still doing the rounds on social media. Balaji was also instrumental in bringing the 'Amma Kudineer' (Amma water), a popular scheme during the Jayalalithaa’s regime.
However Balaji’s clout began falling after he was named in the job racket scam. He was dropped from the cabinet in 2015. In 2016, the AIADMK gave him ticket to contest from Aravakurichi constituency thought he wanted to contest from Karur. But polling in Aravakurichi was deferred after cash for votes allegations. Later the elections were held when Jayalalithaa was in hospital, but he won the polls. After Jayalalithaa's demise, Balaji sided with V.K. Sasikala who chose Palaniswami as the chief minister.
When Sasikala's nephew T.T.V. Dhinakaran parted ways with Palaniswami, alleging corruption, Balaji along with 17 others joined the Dhinakaran camp. But his allegiance with Dhinakaran did not last long and he moved to the DMK in 2020, months before the assembly election.
Born in an agricultural family at Rameswarampatti in Karur, Balaji, 47, began his political journey at an early age. He was part of Vaiko’s MDMK and later moved to the DMK and became a councillor. But in the early 2000s, Balaji quit DMK and joined AIADMK to win as an MLA from Aravakurichi. Later he sided with Dhinakaran and then came back to the DMK in 2020.
In Karur, Balaji is known to be a man of organisational skills. He is looked at as an election machine, who can turn the victory to his side. For instance, in Coimbatore, where the DMK had lost all the 10 assembly segments, Balaji managed to ensure 100 percent victory for the party in all the 138 wards in the local body polls held in 2022. In Karur, he conducts several blood donation camps and job fairs on a regular basis.
The road ahead for Balaji
Balaji, who saw a steady political rise since 1998, is likely to hit a roadblock with the cash-for-job scam case.
While the Madras High Court is yet to pronounce its order on three petitions with regard to moving Balaji to a private hospital in Chennai for a bypass surgery, the court has sent him to judicial custody till June 28. The ED is on the lookout for his brother Ashok Kumar who is reportedly not traceable.
In the wake of this, Balaji might either be dropped from Stalin’s cabinet or retained as a minister without any portfolio.