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Jaya's fresh salvo: ministers sticking on despite PM's say-so

All India Anna DMK general secretary and former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha today alleged that some ministers were still continuing in the Union council of ministers despite being compelled by Prime Minister A B Vajpayee to resign.

Speaking after the wedding of party deputy general secretary K Kalimuthu's daughter at Egmore in Madras, Jayalalitha said this was in stark contrast to the readiness with which Sedapatti R Muthiah, had recently quit as Union surface transport minister.

Jayalalitha had recently demanded that Vajpayee seek the resignations of Buta Singh, Ramakrishna Hegde and Ram Jethmalani or drop them from the Union Cabinet. Of these, Buta Singh was sacked from the Cabinet following his refusal to resign.

Praising the services of Muthiah and Kalimuthu for the AIADMK, she said a bright future awaited them.

Referring to the results of a recent opinion poll undertaken by Outlook which indicated that 63 per cent of the electorate was against her demand for the dismissal of the DMK regime in Tamil Nadu, she alleged that the opinion poll had been conducted at the behest of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. All pre-poll surveys were proved wrong by our thumping victory in the recent Lok Sabha poll, she recalled.

Challenging Karunanidhi to go in for a fresh poll, she asserted that the party would win and prove these opinion polls wrong once again.

UNI

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