Jaya blows cold, BJP gets a breather
N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras
The All India Anna DMK will continue to support the Vajpayee government, and its members will start attending Parliament again on Monday, it was officially announced in Madras on Saturday. Its allies, the Pattali Makkal Katchi and Thamizhaga Rajiv Congress, are also expected to follow suit, thus defusing the crisis that had gripped most part of the four-month old coalition government at the Centre.
"The AIADMK will support the Vajpayee government, and our MPs will start attending Parliament on Monday," party presidium chairman and senior
leader V R Nedunchezhiyan told newsmen outside the Poes Garden home of former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha. However, the party will continue to press its demand for the dismissal of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu, and wants the bill for 69 per cent reservations passed in the current session of Parliament, he added.
"The continued support is for the present," Nedunchezhiyan said. Asked about the possibilities of the party MPs reverting to walkouts and other forms of protests over the AIADMK's demands, he said, "Decisions will be taken then and there, based on the issues."
Nedunchezhiyan's announcement was repeated by Union ministers M Thambidurai and Kadambur R Janarthanam, who also participated in the confabulations in Jayalalitha's home. Soon after Nedunchezhiyan's announcement, two other Union ministers, Dilip Ray of the Biju Janata Dal and George Fernandes of the Samata Party, met Jayalalitha separately. Another caller at Poes Garden was former Union minister Buta Singh, now in the company of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad Yadav, who described his visit as a courtesy call and chose to describe the AIADMK as a "secular party".
Fernandes, a known friend of the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, was happy that the crisis had been averted. "Though we are demanding the dismissal of the Rabri Devi government in Bihar, I, however, clarified to Jayalalitha that our demand is different from the AIADMK's demand for the dismissal of the DMK ministry in Tamil Nadu," he said. Though Dilip Ray didn't say much, he too is known to be close to Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, who in turn is a friend of the DMK leadership.
Though the AIADMK thus has been forced to eat humble pie, the last word might not have been said in what has now turned out to be a war-of -nerves between Jayalalitha and the BJP leadership. What seemed to have forced the AIADMK's climbdown was the BJP's tough posture, and the Congress's indecision on forming an alternative government, should the Vajpayee ministry be pulled down.
The BJP leadership resolved early during the crisis, and stuck to its guns particularly after the AIADMK's boycott of the coordination committee meeting this day last week, that the 'Top Two' would not talk to Jayalalitha on phone to bring her round. If she wanted it, she was most welcome to visit Delhi and meet with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani, like all other leaders of the coalition partners did. The reports on Vajpayee's foster son-in-law scheduling a meeting with Jayalalitha in Madras on Friday only toughened the BJP even further, and no contact was established with the AIADMK. Nedunchezhiyan himself said as much on Friday, implying that the AIADMK was groping for an honourable way out.
The AIADMK's decision now to attend Parliament and support the Vajpayee government, and press its demands from within Parliament, was exactly the line suggested by TRC leader Vazhapaddi K Ramamurthy to Jayalalitha earlier this week. Senior AIADMK leaders had also advocated a similar line in their meetings with her. It she sat on them, Jayalalitha also denied Ramamuthy's public claim of the AIADMK returning to Parliament..
If there is a winner in this round of sparring, beyond the BJP leadership, its undoubtedly the Congress. Jayalalitha's advisors had hoped at one time that the Congress would be more than willing to pull down the BJP government, and the onus and the power to do that rested with the AIADMK supremo.
Later, when the AIADMK failed in its calculations, these advisors thought they could hand down a fait accompli to the Congress by pulling out first and then expecting it to form an alternative government with Jayalalitha's support.
In comparison, Congress president Sonia Gandhi proved to be a tough customer, and seemed to know which side of her bread was buttered. Deviating from the Congress's habit of rushing in to spots where angels feared to tread, she made it more than clear that the Congress was more eager to face the polls than forming another coalition government which too may totter -- particularly when she would need the AIADMK's support, but would be hampered in meeting Jayalalitha's main demand for the dismissal of the DMK government.
By announcing that they would not shirk from its responsibility of forming an alternative government, but would not topple the Vajpayee regime on its own, the Congress leadership has not only kept its flock together, but has also displayed political strategy and maturity that was lacking in the recent past. With this, the party has wrested the initiative in government-formation, alongside the BJP, rendering regional parties as mere camp-followers.
The BJP in New Delhi
welcomed the AIADMK's decision to continue
extending support to the coalition government, and said it
should put to rest all speculation over the matter.
BJP general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu, talking to newspersons, reiterated his party's appeal to all its coalition partners to
discuss all problems at the coordination committee meeting only.
''If the problems are so important that they cannot wait till the
coordination committee meeting is held, they can take it up with
Prime Minister Vajpayee, who is the chairman of the
coordination committee,'' he said.
All coalition partners should understand that any airing of
grievances in public will be construed as that all is not well among
the coalition partners and the Opposition will try to exploit it.
There was no difference among the partners of the government in the
past three-and-a-half months, he pointed out.
The women's reservation bill will be introduced during the week
beginning July 13, while the bills relating to urban land ceiling etc
will also be introduced during this session.
Additional reportage: UNI
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