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Vajpayee should not sacrifice my government to cling to power, says Karunanidhi

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today cautioned Prime Minister A B Vajpayee against dismissing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam regime in the state as it would amount to sacrificing democracy to cling on to power at the Centre.

The chief minister termed as purely political , the demand made by All India Anna DMK general secretary J Jayalalitha for the dismissal of his government.

Quoting Tamil poet Subramania Bharati, he said Vajpayee, a good poet himself, should know that it is futile to sell one's eyes to buy a painting. Similarly, it would not be correct to sacrifice democracy in a bid to cling on to power, he added.

Asserting that he would be willing to sacrifice his government if that would save Vajpayee's government at the Centre, Karunanidhi said if he was dismissed, it would be a for a record third time.

Recalling the prime minister's statement in the Rajya Sabha that there was no proposal to invoke Article 356 to dismiss the DMK regime in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi said even after this, some Union ministers were juggling with his words by saying that the DMK regime will be got rid of by means other than Article 356.

The chief minister said he had always held Vajpayee in high esteem. He is a honest, moderate and straightforward leader, the right man in the wrong party, Karunanidhi said, adding that he would not change his opinion even if his government was dismissed on flimsy grounds.

Referring to the contention that senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Home Minister L K Advani, were issuing contradictory statements on the law and order situation in Tamil Nadu under pressure from Jayalalitha, he said he only wanted the Centre to support and supplement the state government's ongoing struggle against extremists and fundamentalists.

Stating "we need stability both in the state and at the Centre", Karunanidhi said he was certain that Advani would sympathetically consider his demands for allotment of Rs 100 million every year to modernise the state police force and deployment of Rapid Action Force battalions in Coimbatore.

Referring to the Union home ministry team's visit to the city last week to study the law and order situation in the state, Karunanidhi said a section of the media had tried to sensationalise the visit by saying that his government's dismissal was imminent.

However, after the team's visit, several national dailies had correctly reported that the team had given a clean chit to his government on the law and order front, and expressed satisfaction over the steps being taken to combat extremism. The team members paid me a courtesy call before leaving for New Delhi, the chief minister said.

Stating that extremism was a deep-rooted social phenomenon not confined to Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi said massacre and landmine blasts were being reported from various parts of the country, including Udhampur in Jammu region and Nagaland. The issue was whether the administration possessed the will to fight extremism, he added.

The chief minister said he was unperturbed by the dismissal threat as it has nothing new to him. The first time was when the DMK regime was dismissed for associating itself with the struggle launched by the late Jayaprakash Narayan. The second time, the DMK's sympathy for the suffering Sri Lankan Tamils was misrepresented as support to the LTTE's atrocities, he recalled.

UNI

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