Jayalalithaa (top) and Dayanidhi Maran

Chennai, June 3: M. Karunanidhi received a bitter birthday gift today from rival Jayalalithaa, who announced plans to nationalise cable television operations in the state and an inquiry into alleged irregularities in the construction of the new Assembly complex that he had commissioned.

In 2005, during her last stint as chief minister, Jayalalithaa had passed a bill to nationalise multi-system operators in the state but Karunanidhi made sure the governor’s assent was not forthcoming by using his clout with UPA I.

The DMK chief’s grandnephews, Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi Maran, own SCV, which controls the state’s cable market.

Jayalalithaa’s government has also decided to revive Arasu Cable, a state-run cable network Karunanidhi had floated to dent the monopoly of SCV in 2007 when he had fallen out with the Marans. Karunanidhi, who turned 88 today, allowed Arasu to close down, in spite of investments of Rs 220 crore in equipment and cabling, following a patch-up with the Marans in late 2008.

He even transferred an IAS officer who headed Arasu Cable to an innocuous post when he sought permission from Karunanidhi to prosecute SCV for damaging Arasu TV cables.

Jayalalithaa’s move to resurrect Arasu might be more practicable than the nationalisation of private networks, which the Marans are bound to challenge in court.

The Marans had through threat, intimidation and compromise (with Jayalalithaa when she was in power) ensured that SCV enjoyed virtual monopoly in the cable TV industry.

Even big players got elbowed out, allowing SCV to arbitrarily fix carriage fees for channels and the band on which to telecast them.

A channel had to drop a news programme that was seen as too independent for the ruling DMK. “When they found our news programmes to be critical of the DMK, they first moved us to a weak band before finally demanding that we drop news altogether to be available on the SCV network,” recalled Sudhangan, a former news editor of the channel.

The monopoly translated into sustained business for SCV as it got a lion’s share of the monthly fee of Rs 100 that operators collect from each of the 1.2 crore cable-connected homes in the state.

When the DMK had announced that it would distribute free colour TV sets during the 2006 Assembly elections, it was seen as a ruse by the Marans to further expand SCV’s reach, because the new TVs would need cable connections, a business controlled largely by the operator.

Apart from striking at the DMK’s cable monopoly, Jayalaithaa’s government today announced an inquiry by a retired high court judge into alleged irregularities in the building of the new Assembly complex, which cost over Rs 1,000 crore and was inaugurated last year.

When she returned to power last month, Jayalalithaa shifted the Assembly to Fort St George from where it had functioned before 2010.

The contract to build the Assembly complex had been given to ETA, which is also the promoter of Etisalat to which Swan Telecom had sold its shares after getting a 2G licence.