New Delhi: His proximity to DMK chief M. Karunanidhi secured IT and Communications Minister Dayanadhi Maran a berth in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's cabinet. And this proximity again cost him the job he landed in his very first term as an MP.

For Maran, 40, the grand-nephew of Karunanidhi, politics was not the first choice as a career even though his erudite father Murasoli Maran was commerce minister in the previous regime of prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and a parliamentarian since 1967.

A lover of golf, tennis and snooker who was always seen in smart business attires, Maran was more at home helping his elder brother Kalanidhi Maran run the family media empire that has in its fold Sun TV, the largest TV network in south India in four languages.

But once Maran Sr. died in November 2003, Karunanidhi again wanted someone from the "family" to represent DMK in parliament, and after the party joined the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition, the plum IT and communications portfolio landed on his lap. Maran, an economics graduate from the prestigious Loyala College in Chennai, won the Chennai Central seat by grabbing 62 percent of the votes polled.

"His role in bringing major and positive changes in telecommunications sector have been of great significance to the IT software and services industry," said Kiran Karnik of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom).

Maran's exit from the cabinet was triggered by an opinion poll in his family-run Tamil daily Dinakaran, which said 70 percent of the people in the state favoured Karunanidhi's younger son M.K. Stalin as his likely political heir and only 2 percent had voted for Stalin's elder brother Azhagiri.

Karunanidhi, who had painstakingly sought to settle the succession issue, viewed the opinion poll as an act of indiscipline and mischief that sought to cause a rift between his two ambitious sons. He was authorized by the party to seek his immediate recall from the cabinet.

"I have consciously never ever betrayed Karunanidhi," said Maran later. "I'm a member of DMK since birth. Whatever my leader's wish, I'll do. I am only sad an accusation has been put on me that I indulged in anti-party activities."

But his popularity in national politics and his somewhat publicity seeking image where he would be regularly seen posing for photographs with chief executives of major global firms like Microsoft, Intel or Cisco, did not go well with his detractors. He was also the DMK leader who would share the dais with the prime minister and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi during important events.

Even in terms of handling the IT and communications portfolio in the three years Maran was in office, India achieved many milestones, say industry leaders, but quickly add that the credit to him goes only to the extent that he maintained the momentum that was set by his processors.