Her doting father named her “Sweet Language” — or Kanimozhi. Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Karunanidhi’s favourite daughter should perhaps have stuck to words — her first love. For the language directed today at the poet-turned-politician may not be all that sweet any more.

In 2007, she was hailed as another fresh face in Parliament. Four years down the line, she has been embroiled in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Earlier this week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a chargesheet against the DMK MP. And in Chennai, her friends can’t believe how all this could have happened to the girl with the sweet smile who liked her Pablo Neruda as much as her Japanese Haikus.

“She had the girl-next-door image, unlike other members of the Karunanidhi family,” says old friend Sukumaran, a well-known Tamil poet. “She showed no inclination towards politics at all,” adds Tamil publisher and editor ‘Kalachuvadu’ Kannan.

Perhaps, Kanimozhi, 43, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Happily ensconced in Chennai, after a stint in Singapore, the DMK patriarch’s daughter was sent to Delhi in what political observers described as another twist to the then bitter political fight between Karunanidhi’s sons and his grandnephews, the Marans.

Minister Dayanidhi Maran was becoming the face of the DMK in Delhi — which was resented by the sons. The brothers closed ranks with each other and with Kanimozhi to put up a united front. The half-sister, they thought, would replace the nephew.

Somewhere along the way, the script changed.

Her friends thought she’d stay away from politics. After all, the girl who travelled with her friends in autos and ate with them in small restaurants was a poet. She was a lover of music who enjoyed listening to Carnatic classical singers Bombay Jayashri and Sanjay Subramaniam. Her father, however, had other plans. “Politics is the reason,” he quipped when asked in 2007 why his daughter was entering politics. Some eyebrows were raised, for his favourite daughter — from Rajathi Ammal — was his literary heir, but a political greenhorn.

“She was quiet and gentle and never showed any interest in politics,” points out Vaasanthi, former political editor of a Tamil weekly, who has known Kanimozhi for long. “But politics was in her blood. She grew up in a political atmosphere and might not have been able to escape it.”

Her personal life was a stormy one. Her first marriage to a Sivakasi firecracker unit owner was described as abusive. In 1997, she married G. Aravindaan, a Singapore-based writer only to return to Chennai in 2001. They have a son, Aditya.

Many would have thought that her own childhood would have been a troubled one, for the family was sharply divided among Karunanidhi’s wives and their offspring. But, as Kanimozhi told The Telegraph in a 2007 interview, she grew up with her father by her side. He may not have met her teachers in school, she said, but he was there for her.

Even in college — Kanimozhi completed her masters degree in economics from Ethiraj College in Chennai — she didn’t throw her weight around. “She was friendly and interested in participating in literary activities,” recalls Sukumaran.

Soon, however, she was making her mark as a poet. Kanimozhi, who started penning verse when she was in school, was born when the World Tamil Conference was being held in Chennai — the reason her literary father named her Kanimozhi.

By the late 1980s, hers was one of the “promising women voices” to hit the male dominated Tamil poetry scene, says Sukumaran. She published three collections, but the reviews were mixed. “I liked her first volume. We expected a lot from her. But Kanimozhi just stopped where she had started and did not grow,” Sukumaran adds.

A few, however, had an idea that she would eventually join politics. “Ambition runs in Karunanidhi’s family,” says political analyst Cho Ramaswamy. “Kanimozhi is ambitious; the entire family is ambitious.”

Soon, Kanimozhi was making her presence felt. She was a vocal supporter of Khushboo when the actress was being pilloried for her stand on pre-marital sex. She also initiated a website karuthu.com, a forum for constructive criticism, with Karti Chidambaram, son of home minister P. Chidambaram.

Her entry into politics, points out a political scientist from the University of Madras, was planned. “Just as (PMK chief S. Ramadoss’s son) Anbumani entered politics through an environment organisation, Kanimozhi organised job fairs and started Tamil Maiyam, an NGO responsible for organising the annual Chennai Sangamam, a folk arts festival, to enter politics,” he says.

But though she had no experience in party affairs, Kanimozhi’s political debut was not unimpressive. She was an active parliamentarian, asking questions on a wide range of subjects: demanding a TV channel for farmers and questioning the increase in crimes against women.

“But she could have done a lot more,” says Kannan. “She could easily have been the alternative voice in the party focusing on women’s rights when the DMK came to power in 2006. Instead she decided to empower the patriarchal politics in DMK.”

In the capital, she was often seen in the company of another young fresher, Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter. And she was close to her father’s trusted lieutenant, former telecom minister A. Raja, who was arrested for his role in the 2G scam. “Politics is a dirty field — one has to be careful,” says Vaasanthi. “She is a novice in politics and tried playing with the big fishes. She was way beyond her depth.”

Kanimozhi, associates say, started changing. “When I met her three years ago, she greeted me like an official and moved on,” says Sukumaran, “After she went to Delhi, she started to dress better and became more media savvy. The change was natural: she was exposed to a different environment and changed accordingly,” says Vaasanthi.

But, after that four-year stint in Delhi, she’s now back to square one. Her political future, a DMK party observer points, hangs in a fine balance. Kanimozhi, he stresses, will have support in the DMK only while her father is there. “She knows her position becomes tenuous once he dies. She has no mass support in the party either. She will be given importance only as long as her father is by her side.”

Her father, an astute politician if there was ever one, knows that too. In 1995, when he was politically down, he called an editor and agonized over the fate of his daughter. “All my sons are settled, but what will happen to her,” he is supposed to have cried.

What will happen to her now is the question.