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The Tamil Nadu-based Madumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (MDMK), a constituent of the ruling NDA at the Centre, is unhappy with the departments entrusted to Union Minister of State for Finance G N Ramachandran after Jaswant Singh took over the finance portfolio.
Ramachandran has been stripped off the 'all-important' revenue department and entrusted with banking and finance departments.
The revenue portfolio has gone to newly-appointed Minister of State for Finance Anant Gite, who replaces party senior Balasaheb Vikhe Patil, who has been promoted to Cabinet rank and handed over the heavy industries portfolio earlier held by his party colleague Manohar Joshi.
Joshi is now the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.
The change comes in the wake of Jaswant Singh's efforts to refurbish and reorganise the ministry.
Singh also revived the post of finance secretary and appointed S Narayan, a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, to the post.
Given the 'political importance and the legal import' of the revenue department in the overall context of its powers to file cases for economic offences of a sensitive nature, the timing of the change has not gone down well with the MDMK leadership.
With the revenue department under him, Ramachandran was in overall charge of the Enforcement Directorate, which has revived the 'Lexus car import case' against M Natarajan and V Bhaskaran, husband and nephew, respectively of Sasikala, live-in confidante of Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa.
Despite the duo claiming exemption under Samadhan, a voluntary disclosure scheme (VDS), the Enforcement Directorate went ahead and filed a case in a Chennai court in June.
As sources in the ED pointed out, Samadaan, like other earlier VDS schemes, would not apply to 'corruption cases' involving 'public servants'.
The 'Lexus car import case' pertains to the time when Jayalalithaa became chief minister for the first time.
She is believed to have taken up the issue with senior BJP leaders during the run-up to the choice of the NDA's presidential nominee.
With the vice-presidential election, due after the presidential poll, threatening to be a tricky affair for the BJP, MDMK sources say relieving Ramachandran of the revenue department was the BJP's way of sending a positive signal to the AIADMK supremo.
Earlier, Ramachandran's name was associated with the controversial withdrawal of a FERA case against Jayalalithaa when all pending FERA cases came for a final review during may-end this year.
All pending FERA cases had to be wrapped by May this year as it has now been replaced by the Foreign Exchange Maintenance Act (FEMA).
The case, involving alleged receipt of $200,000 from London, was among those transferred to FEMA. Penalty for violation of the FEMA attracts a fine, not a jail term as under FERA.
The MDMK has been in the news for another reason too. The party's leader V Gopalaswamy, popularly known as Vaiko, is facing a detention warrant issued under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) by the Tamil Nadu government for his alleged pro-LTTE utterances.
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