Presiding over an ostentatious function to celebrate 14th
anniversary of Jaya TV channel and felicitation of film music directors
M.S.Viswanathan and T.K.Ramamurthy, Chief Minister Jayalalitha has regretted
that the music duo had not been given Padma awards by the Centre. But she did
not stop with that. As she is used to, she said, “I recommended their names for
Padma awards of last year. However, the Centre which has view against the State
government, did not pay heed to it. The time will fructify when this award is
given if I say, then I will make them get the award.”
Every year all State governments send lists of distinguished
persons in different walks of life from their respective states for conferring
Padma Awards by the President. The Central government has the unenviable task
of balancing the interests of various states in the process of selecting the
awardees. That precisely is the reason that no Chief Minister of any state
openly disclose the names of the recommended for two reasons: one, no awardee
shall feel that his/her merit was recognized by the country only on
recommendation and two, to avoid any unnecessary disappointment or heartburn
for them whose names are not considered in that year. During his rules,
Kalaignar had recommended these awards for many persons, but he never claimed
credit for them, lest it could be construed as an insult to the distinction of
the awardees concerned.
So it is very mean of megalomaniac Jayalalitha to reveal
that she recommended Padma awards to the much acclaimed musical vizards
M.S.Viswanathan and T.K.Ramamurthy. In a sense it is a humiliation meted out to
them – even if they are awarded in future, it will be an embarrassment for
them.
That aside, the country has already witnessed the most
torturous 13 months of the first NDA government led by suave gentleman
A.B.Vajpayee at the Centre, perpetually intimidated by Jayalalitha, at last
pulling it down and thrusting another general elections in one year, causing
enormous loss for the nation. Now Jayalalitha wants a government again at the
Centre which will ‘abide’ by her ‘dictates’! People of the nation and
particularly political class (including of course her minions in ADMK) would
shudder to think about such a disastrous experiment again in the country. Such
was their experience in those 13 months in 1998-99! Let us refresh our memory
of what all happened then.
In 1998, while DMK was in power at the State, BJP and ADMK
fought the Lok Sabha polls together (with MDMK). During the course of seat
allocation, it appeared that BJP was given a raw deal as ADMK allocated
unfavourable seats to BJP. A case in point being, Jayalalitha ensured that late
Rangarajan Kumaramangalam was denied the Salem constituency and allocated that
to Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthy (who headed Rajiv Indira Congress and was part of BJP
led NDA) at that time. A reluctant Rangarajan had to contest at
Tiruchchirappalli Lok Sabha constituency. Incidentally, days before the
election serial bomb blasts rocked Coimbatore and the expected anti-incumbency
factor took effect ensured that the alliance sailed through with BJP opening
its account in Tamil Nadu. The alliance won 25 seats (ADMK - 18, BJP - 3, MDMK
- 3, Rajiv Indira Congress - 1) out of 39. Jayalalitha exposed her true colours
by dragging her feet on everything related to the government formation at the
Centre. At first, she failed to give her letter of support to the President,
which was a necessity at that time given the fractured nature of the verdict.
All through the 13 month period that the government lasted, she held Atal
Behari Vajpayee led NDA government to ransom with her frequent unreasonable
demands. Finally, the uneasy alliance ended when Jayalalitha pulled the plug by
withdrawing support to the NDA government in April 1999.
Even during the formation of Ministry troubles started. Prime
Minister Vajpayee refused to accommodate Subramanian Swamy as Cabinet Minister
despite Jayalalitha’s recommendation to make him either Finance or Commerce Minister.
Subramanian Swamy urged her to take a tough stand.
The ‘Frontline’ in a story ‘Dealing with Jayalalitha’
reported in April 1998:
ADMK General Secretary Jayalalitha will now have to choose
between the BJP and Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy. The BJP is said to
have indicated to her that she would have to make her choice before the Budget
session of the Lok Sabha begins on May 27. BJP sources in Chennai told
Frontline that the party would not accept Subramanian Swamy's presence in the ADMK-led
front in Tamil Nadu if he continued to say that he would topple the Vajpayee
Government.
BJP leader Jaswant Singh flew in from Delhi and met
Jayalalitha at her Payyanoor retreat, 60 km from Chennai, on April 25. Sources
said that Jaswant Singh did some "plain talking". He apparently told Jayalalitha that the BJP would not accept
her three major demands: dismissal of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)
Government in Tamil Nadu; the removal of Ram Jethmalani and Ramakrishna Hegde
from the Union Cabinet; and action against a private television channel (Sun
TV) based in Chennai. The sources added that Jaswant Singh ruled out a
place for Subramanian Swamy in the coordination committee. He also told her to
put an end to attacks by some ADMK functionaries on Jethmalani and Hegde.
Jaswant Singh met Jayalalitha against the background of a
slanging match between Jethmalani and Hegde on the one hand and ADMK Ministers
at the Centre, M. Thambi Durai, R. Janarthanan and R.K. Kumar, on the other.
The row followed the April 8 resignation of Union Surface Transport Minister
Sedapatti R. Muthiah of the ADMK after a Chennai court framed charges against
him in a case of acquisition of assets disproportionate to his known source of
income during his tenure as the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Assembly from July
1991 to October 1994.
The situation worsened a week later. After a meeting of the ADMK
executive committee on April 15, Jayalalitha demanded that all Union Ministers
who were charge-sheeted in corruption cases resign or be dismissed by the Prime
Minister. The next day, Jethamalani and Hegde strongly criticised her and
predicted that these "pinpricks" would end soon.
On April 18 Jayalalitha wrote to Vajpayee naming three
Ministers - Communications Minister Buta Singh, Urban Development Minister
Jethmalani and Commerce Minister Hegde - as being involved in cases of
corruption and demanding their removal or the re-induction of Muthiah. On April
19 Jethmalani again launched a broadside against Jayalalitha. He took on
Subramanian Swamy too. "It is clearly Dr. Subramanian Swamy who is pushing
her into making all these wild demands," he said. Hegde wanted Vajpayee to
go in for fresh elections instead of giving in to Jayalalitha's
"blackmail". In reply, Thambi Durai, Kumar and Janarthanan, in a
statement on April 23, asked Vajpayee to "advise Mr. Hegde to either shut
up or get out."
It was at this stage that the BJP high command intervened
and sent Jaswant Singh to meet Jayalalitha. Jaswant Singh had earlier come in
March to placate her when she delayed giving the letters of support that would
enable Vajpayee to form the government. BJP sources said that this time Jaswant
Singh made it clear that junior Ministers of the ADMK should not speak out of
turn. If the ADMK leadership had something to say, Jayalalitha should be the
one to say that, he said. He also advised her against rushing to the media. The
BJP high command was annoyed that her letter to Vajpayee had been released to
the media.
Jaswant
Singh was reportedly categorical about the BJP's decision not to invoke Article
356 to dismiss the DMK Government. A senior BJP source said: "We are
tightening the screws. The idea is that this war of words cannot go on... You
will find a change from now on."
There was no word from Jayalalitha about the meeting.
Sources in Chennai indicated that there was no meeting ground between
Jayalalitha and Jaswant Singh. Jaswant Singh, however, claimed that the
"mission was a success". On the welter of charges and
counter-allegations made by Union Ministers, he said that the Prime Minister
"will take such action as he deems fit and proper."
The same day K.L. Sharma said in New Delhi that Subramanian
Swamy would not be included in the coordination committee because he had failed
to vote for the Government in the vote of confidence.
WHETHER by accident or design, a DMK executive meeting
presided over by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on April 25 condemned the demand
for the dismissal of the Government that emanated from an "enemy
party" and Union Ministers belonging to it as "blatant
blackmail" and "devoid of any merit at all". It added that the
demand was made "to subserve their vested interests, with palpable mala
fides in order to avoid accountability to the courts of law in the pending
cases of corruption."
The resolution also condemned the transfer of Union Special
Secretary for Home Ashok Kumar, one of two officials sent as part of the
Central team to study the law and order situation in Tamil Nadu, and said that
this was done because he told the "truth". The resolution said that
this approach amounted to "burying" federalism and marked a
"dictatorial trend in interfering in the State Government's affairs."
The resolution added: "In the event of any such
proclamation (for dismissal) being made in Delhi because of the blackmail of
the vested interests," it would be "resisted by constitutional,
lawful and peaceful methods in courts of law." The executive committee
appealed to all democratic forces "to support this resistance
movement."
When a reporter asked Karunanidhi whether the resolution was
driven by the fear that his Government would be dismissed, he said: "This
is only a reply to the threats from some terrorists in Poes Garden."
The Chief Minister called the resolution "an advance
notice to the Centre that it should not give room to some people who have been
trying to paralyse the administration and disrupt law and order by repeatedly
claiming that the DMK Government will be dismissed."
After the Jaswant Singh-Jayalalitha meeting, ADMK leaders
fell silent. However, Subramanian Swamy stepped up the offensive once it was
known that he was not welcome to the coordination committee. He alleged on
April 26 that the BJP citing his not having voted for the Government was an
"excuse" to exclude him from the coordination committee. According to
him, the real reason for the crisis was the "asymmetrical application of
the criterion" on who should be a Union Minister. He said that while
Muthiah was asked to resign, "tainted" Ministers such as Hegde and
Advani were allowed to continue. Advani's crime - he was charge-sheeted in the
Babri Masjid demolition case - was not a "political crime", he said,
but "a crime against humanity and the integrity of the nation..."
Swamy met Jayalalitha in Chennai on April 27 and said that
he was "free to explore the possibility of creating an alternative,
secular, patriotic front" at the Centre. He declared that henceforth
"in national politics, I am a free bird." He claimed that Jayalalitha
had told him that Jaswant Singh "never discussed the matter" of his
exclusion from the coordination committee. Although he would consider breaking
away from the BJP-led alliance, he asserted that he continued to be part and
parcel of the ADMK-led front in Tamil Nadu.
Jayalalitha, BJP sources said, was faced with a difficult
situation. "If Swamy remains in the ADMK front in Tamil Nadu, then there
is nothing wrong in the BJP getting close to somebody who is against her, such
as the DMK. She has to choose between the BJP and Swamy."
Political analysts believed that Jayalalitha was left with
"no choice". She could not part company with the BJP because the
stakes involved were high - there were corruption cases pending against her and
her former Ministers, and breaking away from the BJP would weaken her.
The response of the other constituents of the ADMK-led front
to Swamy's challenge will have a bearing on Jayalalitha's future course of
action. Of the three of them - MDMK, the PMK and the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress -
the PMK and the TRC are participants in the Central Government. The PMK had
indicated its position when its leader S. Ramadoss hinted that his party would
not play along with Subramanian Swamy.
In August 1998, the following was reported:
In politics, as in pugilism, Jayalalitha said, the
"knock-out blow" would come only in the end. Nothing summed up the
combative nature of the relationship between the All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam and the Bharatiya Janata Party more succinctly than the
boxing metaphor employed by the ADMK general secretary on August 10. Addressing
a press conference in Chennai, she warned that her party would review its
support to the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government if it failed to notify the
original draft scheme for implementing the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal's
Interim Award. (an alibi to reject Cauvery River Authority)
Over the next 10 days, the ADMK leader administered several
more body blows to the BJP, which virtually had the Vajpayee Government out for
the count. The survival instinct, however, kept it hanging on in the ring, and
the BJP even managed to throw in a couple of counterpunches, feeble though they
were. By the last week of August, both combatants had retreated to their
corners and were towelling themselves up; to most observers, it seemed
abundantly clear that the bout would not last more than a few more rounds.
One reason why the ADMK did not administer the
"knock-out blow" this time around was presumably that Jayalalitha did
not receive any concrete signal from Congress(I) president Sonia Gandhi
regarding the formation of a coalition government if the ADMK pulled out of the
Vajpayee Government.
One reason why she did not administer the "knock-out
blow" to the Vajpayee Government now was presumbly that she did not
receive any signal from the Congress(I) on the formation of an alternative
government.
On the other hand, the BJP had succeeded to an extent in
isolating the ADMK from its allies in Tamil Nadu. Dr. S. Ramadoss of the
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), Vaiko of the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (MDMK) and Vazhapadi K. Ramamurthi of the Tamilaga Rajiv Congress
(TRC) made it plain to Jayalalitha that they would continue to support the
Vajpayee Government. Only Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, another
ally of the ADMK, was keen on pulling down the BJP-led Government.
The Cauvery issue, over which a confrontation erupted on
August 10, lay submerged for a while in a flood of other allegations and
counter-allegations between the ADMK and the BJP over the transfer of the
Director of the Enforcement Directorate, M.K. Bezbaruah, Finance Secretary
Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Revenue Secretary N.K. Singh and other top officials.
On August 16, Jayalalitha wrote to Prime Minister A.B.
Vajpayee demanding that the transfers be reversed. In a statement released the
same day, she alleged that the owners of a "well-known group of
publications" had paid "hefty bribes to persons very close to the
Prime Minister's office to get Mr. Bezbaruah transferred out of the E.D."
She condemned the "cunning attempt" to make it appear that the
transfers had been effected to placate her since some of her close associates
are facing investigations by the E.D. for alleged violations of the Foreign
Exchange Regulation Act. According to Jayalalitha, there was "no
connection whatsoever between me" and the transfer of Bezbaruah, N.K.
Singh and Ahluwalia, but she was made a "scapegoat" in the transfers.
She said when George Fernandes and Pramod Mahajan called on her: "I did
not broach any subject other than the Cauvery river water issue."
"(The newspaper owners) cleverly exploited the present
situation to their advantage by making it appear that I had demanded
Bezbaruah's transfer and achieved their objective by pinning the blame on
me," she said.
The next day, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister,
Brajesh Mishra, wrote to Jayalalitha to request her to produce "all
evidence" in respect of her allegation appearing in the newspapers that
"hefty bribes" were paid to "persons very close to the Prime
Minister" to get Bezbaruah transferred out.
In response, P. Mahalingam, executive secretary at the ADMK
headquarters (in effect, the office manager) [whom ‘The Telegraph’ referred to
as Tea Boy in ADMK office] wrote to Mishra on August 19 demanding an inquiry by
the Central Bureau of Investigation into "the furious lobbying" by a
newspaper group for Bezbaruah's transfer. Mahalingam said: "Such an
inquiry will reveal the motives behind the shifting of an upright officer more
than two years before his tenure was completed." Mahalingam said that
Vajpayee had written to Prime Minister I.K. Gujral and made serious allegations
against the newspaper group and demanded a probe.
The fact that Jayalalitha had got a party official to
respond to Mishra was perceived as an intended slight; Jayalalitha was
evidently "getting even" with Vajpayee for having got Mishra to
respond to her letter to the Prime Minister.
The August 7 agreement to set up a Cauvery River Authority
and a monitoring committee to oversee the sharing of waters by Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka was generally welcomed in Tamil Nadu. The ADMK, the PMK, the MDMK and
the Janata Party, however, rejected the agreement. Their demand was that the
original draft scheme of May 1997, which they argued was much more favourable
to Tamil Nadu, should be notified in the Central gazette before August 12. The
Supreme Court had given the Centre time till August 12 to resolve the issues
relating to the Interim Award, which gave 205 tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu.
On August 10, Jayalalitha said at a press conference that
"we will review the question of support" to the BJP-led Government if
it did not gazette the original draft scheme before August 12. The Government,
however, went ahead and notified the new scheme on August 11.
The BJP leadership, after stating that no attempt would be
made to pacify Jayalalitha, despatched George Fernandes and Pramod Mahajan to
Chennai on August 12. Mahajan was sent because Jayalalitha wanted a BJP leader
to accompany Fernandes, who belongs to the Samata Party. Jaswant Singh, who had
come twice earlier on trouble-shooting missions, declined to go this time.
Advani was apparently not in a mood to talk to her on the phone after her
earlier critical remarks about him.
Informed sources said that Jayalalitha was deeply suspicious
of Mahajan for his having reportedly blocked an inquiry into Sun TV (owned by
Kalanidhi Maran, son of Murasoli Maran). Mahajan had also reportedly approached
Murasoli Maran to secure the DMK's support to form a BJP Government after the
fall of the Deve Gowda Government in 1997.
Fernandes and Mahajan were unnerved by the sort of reception
they got at Jayalalitha's Poes Garden residence on August 12. She did not meet
them but reportedly railed at them on the intercom. She asked Mahajan whether
he had to come to Poes Garden by mistake when he should really be in
Gopalapuram (where Maran lives in Chennai). She told Fernandes that the BJP did
not consult her on the Cauvery issue but had presented her with a fait
accompli. Fernandes and Mahajan went away, but came back late in the afternoon,
by which time Jayalalitha had mellowed a bit. The Cauvery issue dominated the
discussion, and she repeatedly stressed that the BJP had let her down and
allowed Karunanidhi to walk away with the honours.
The same night, Vazhapadi Ramamurthi and Ramadoss met
Vajpayee in New Delhi. Ramamurthi tersely told journalists: "There is no
crisis."
While Jayalalitha was adamant that the ADMK should withdraw
support to the BJP-led Government, her allies Ramadoss, Vaiko and Ramamurthi
counselled patience, pointing out that any precipitate action on the eve of
Independence Day - when Vajpayee was to hoist the national flag from the
ramparts of the Red Fort - would tarnish the country's image. The three leaders
also told her that their parties would continue to support the BJP Government
if she withdrew support. Only Subramanian Swamy sided with her.
The same day (August 13), the Centre announced the
"repatriation" of Bezbaruah to the Delhi Government.
Fernandes met Jayalalitha again on August 14 evening, after
reportedly waiting in a military guest house throughout the day. But during
that time, he met Ramadoss, who drove up from Tindivanam. Fernandes said he had
"very good and useful talks" with Jayalalitha and was going back
"quite satisfied". He denied that there was any kind of crisis. The
same day, N.K. Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and a host of other top officers
were transferred, again leading to speculation that the transfers were effected
to placate Jayalalitha.
She demanded the reinstatement of Bezbaruah because Union
Minister of State for Personnel and Revenue R. Janarthanan of the ADMK was not
consulted on the issue. On August 18, she demanded a CBI inquiry into
Bezbaruah's transfer.
Fernandes added: "I took no package from the Prime
Minister to Ms. Jayalalitha on both days. Nor was there any demand made by her
on the Prime Minister during my meetings with her."
The war of words escalated when Mahalingam alleged in his
letter to Brajesh Mishra that there was "frequent interaction of the
impugned group's senior personnel with a gentleman who was till recently part
of the PMO. Such close interaction with those facing serious charges which are
under investigation naturally leads to adverse inferences." He added:
"What is worse, an individual very close to the Prime Minister has had
meetings with the Corporate Director of this group." The next day, Mahajan
dared her to name him as the person to whom "hefty bribes" had been
paid, and face legal action.
Jayalalitha's foremost worry now is to keep her alliance
with the PMK, the MDMK and the TRC intact. A BJP leader summed up the present
situation thus: "The period of reconciliation with Jayalalitha is over. It
is now a question of whether she wants to pull out of the coalition in grace or
disgrace.
Appeasing Jayalalitha was one of Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee's principal and painful preoccupations ever since he came to power in
March 1998. The ADMK chief, known for her penchant to spring nasty surprises, kept
the BJP on tenterhooks with one demand after another. The PM always went the
extra mile to placate the second largest party in the 18-member coalition,
despite misgivings among partymen. But the last set of impossible demands from
Jayalalitha, spelt out during her five-day visit (March 26-30, 1999) to New
Delhi, pushed Vajpayee back to the wall. Some BJP leaders were optimistic that
the crisis would blow over, but this time the signals from ADMK headquarters in
Chennai held more import than usual.
The latest bout of belligerence from the ADMK was seen in
the backdrop of Jayalalitha's seven-minute meeting with Sonia Gandhi at
Subramanian Swamy's tea party in Delhi the previous week. Many believed that
Jayalalitha's added stridency stems from the fact that a deal has been brokered
with the Congress.
Vajpayee's calculation, of course, was that Jayalalitha was
only "using" the meeting with Sonia to up her ante; sabre rattling,
if you will, and that the "mature thing to do is ride out the storm".
But the fact was a large section of the BJP, led by L.K. Advani and including
nearly the entire party hierarchy, was furious that they are being taunted at
each turn by the ADMK supremo. Their discomfort at the public perception of
their party as one willing to suffer all forms of humiliation to stay in power
was growing ever stronger.
Like in the past, Vajpayee sought to cool tempers even at
the cost of self-embarrassment. Jayalalitha had taken umbrage over Union power
minister P.R. Kumaramangalam's remarks to the electronic media which amounted
to asking her to quit the government if she did not agree with its decisions.
Vajpayee was quick to bow to the ADMK's express demand that he dissociate
himself from the statement and called it a "personal view". The PM's
placatory statement was issued in less than an hour after the ADMK headquarters
released a stinging statement signed by eight senior functionaries on April 1.
But tempers had not quite cooled in Chennai. Senior ADMK
leaders held a meeting with Jayalalitha on April 2 at which, according to
sources, it was informally decided that the party should demand a public
apology from Kumaramangalam "for trespassing his limits". Said a
senior party leader: "We know that Ranga (Kumaramangalam) made those
statements at the behest of Advani. It was Jayalalitha who helped him win the
Trichy seat and not Advani.We won't permit this go on."
It was also made clear that the party would pursue the case
of former navy chief Vishnu Bhagwat's sacking. The idea was to make the going
tough for the BJP when Parliament's budget session resumes on April 15—that
was, if they were not provided enough reason to call a truce. "We'll take
up the issues Jayalalitha raised in Delhi. There'll be no change in our
stand," a senior party leader said.
To understand Vajpayee's cup of woes, one only has to look
at the list of demands Jayalalitha brought to Delhi. Chief among these:
Reinstate Admiral Bhagwat or shift George Fernandes from the
Defence ministry;
Move Vazhapadi Ramamurthy from the Petroleum ministry and
swear in an ADMK nominee;
Induct two ADMK ministers to replace Sedapatti Muthiah and
R.K. Kumar even if there is no cabinet expansion;
Conduct an inquiry against Sun TV and raid the premises of
the proprietors, kith and kin of M. Karunanidhi;
Not accommodate MDMK in the cabinet;
Pull up Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha for citing MDMK
leader Vaiko, instead of her, in the budget speech as the prime mover while
clearing the Sethusamundaram project; (It is the same Jayalalitha who later
opposed Sethusamudram project when the UPA government implemented)
Dismiss the DMK government.
Tough call, this. Giving in would mean Vajpayee had to go
against the mood of his party and allies. Even his aides concede that the break
would have to come sooner or later, unless the Congress lets Jayalalitha down
with a thud. In fact, Vajpayee was known to be sceptical of the glib way in
which sundry leaders of his party and coalition were insisting that the
government would survive "even if Jayalalitha withdraws support".
That this a central calculation of the ADMK as well was
quite clear. Though, as a senior ADMK strategist in Chennai said, "if
Sonia refuses to align with us in a coalition or even for an election, there's
no way we can file a case against her, you see". A section of the Congress
was wary of having the situation spinning out of control—this was the school of
thought that said "we only wanted to destabilise a government which was
acquiring a degree of coherence". Others cited the fact that the high
command has directed state units to organise rallies against alleged corruption
in the defence ministry and the Bhagwat sacking as an indication that Sonia was
serious.
But to get back to the BJP, Vajpayee was also put on the
defensive by his own partymen. Says a leader who has been one of the most
vociferous against the ADMK over the past week: "Our main ally hobnobs
with the principal opposition, speaks of political earthquakes and changing
equations being in the offing, threatens to withdraw support within one hour if
the PM doesn't come to heel and nearly mentions the Congress by name as a
prospective partner. And we do nothing!" This, some feared, might become a
habit.
The refrain seemed to be that the interests of the
party—and, in the long run, of the coalition—were being sacrificed. The riposte
from Vajpayee's admirers was predictable: that the BJP is a political party
which aims for power, and if it is not in power, it can't implement its
promises. This thin line between tactical compromise and abject surrender
reflects the divide within—one that seemed to have subsided lately, but
sharpened all over again by Jayalalitha's antics.”
Although the government led by him fell ultimately, Vajpayee
was the most relieved man. In exasperation Vajpayee said that the worst mistake
committed by him in 50 years of his public life was aligning with Jayalalitha
and vowed not to commit the mistake again in the rest of his life.
The attempts of Jayalalitha along with Subramanian Swamy to
form an alternative government of the fall of the NDA government ended in a
fiasco as the Congress as well as other parties including the Left parties were
weary of forming a government in which Jayalalitha will have a say directly or
indirectly. During the course of 13 months Jayalalitha was regularly issuing
statements which were virulent attacks on the NDA government than the
opposition parties. In fact her statements opposing Cauvery River Authority was
verbatim carried from an article written by Congress leader Mani Shankar Iyer
in ‘The Indian Express’ on the same day. Buoyed by the extensive coverage she
got in the national media, Jayalalitha mistakenly thought that she was emerging
as the national kingmaker. But the
people of the country gave her a fitting lesson by reelecting a BJP-led government
with comfortable majority in the next election.
If for immediate political convenient any political party
including the BJP dare to once again aligning with Jayalalitha in their itch
for power forgetting the bitter experience of Vajpayee, people and the history
will not absolve them.
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