The AIADMK has hit back at the DMK’s current narrative of “Delhi‑centric” politics, recalling that former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi himself had rushed to Delhi in a state of panic when his daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi was arrested and sent to Tihar prison in the 2G spectrum scam in 2011.
In a fresh attack, the party’s leaders have cited this incident to argue that the DMK’s talk of defending Tamil Nadu’s autonomy is hypocritical, given Karunanidhi’s high‑profile intervention in the capital at that time.
Kanimozhi was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in May 2011 and sent to Tihar Central Jail after a Delhi special court rejected her bail plea, reportedly citing the “magnitude” of the 2G scam and the risk of witness influence. Following the conviction‑like tone of the court order and the media frenzy, Karunanidhi flew to Delhi and visited Tihar jail more than once to meet his detained daughter, even as the DMK faced intense political and legal heat.
AIADMK leaders now frame this as evidence that Karunanidhi “abandoned” his own rhetoric of staying away from Delhi‑centric politics when his family’s legal crisis erupted. They argue that it was only when Kanimozhi’s freedom was directly threatened that the DMK patriarch suddenly became a regular in Delhi’s corridors, seeking political and legal leverage.
The reference to the 2011 Tihar episode is part of a broader war of narratives in the run‑up to the 2026 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, where the DMK is accusing the AIADMK–NDA combine of being “Delhi‑driven,” while the opposition retaliates by highlighting the DMK’s own past dependence on central power. By reviving the image of an anxious Karunanidhi in Delhi prison‑visiting corridors, the AIADMK aims to blunt the DMK’s moral claim to being the sole guardian of Tamil Nadu’s interests against outside control.