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AIADMK hopes to make most of BJP's woes

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham is watching the Bharatiya Janata Party's current predicament at the national-level with smug satisfaction.

While the party sees wider acceptance of its anti-BJP reservations within the coalition, it is in no great hurry to come out in the open.

"Others too are now feeling the BJP pinch," says an AIADMK source, referring to the BJP's current problems with the Akali Dal and the Trinamul Congress, for instance. "And this unilateral approach of the BJP within the coalition is what we sought to highlight earlier."

According to this source, the BJP has its own private agenda for each state, and each region. "Instead of behaving with greater responsibility and accountability to other partners, the BJP has been pursuing a narrow, partisan programme. It was on display, first in Tamil Nadu, later in West Bengal, and more recently on Bihar and Udham Singh Nagar issues."

In this context, the AIADMK source refers to the BJP's ''unabashed hurry, unbecoming of a national coalition leader answerable to other partners''. As he points out, the 'Bihar fiasco' has done 'great damage' not only to the BJP's standing, but also to other partners in the coalition.

"Despite the known positions of the Akali Dal and the Telugu Desam Party, and also the possible stand of President K R Narayanan, and maybe even the Supreme Court, the BJP leadership went ahead and recommended the dismissal of the Bihar government," recalls the AIADMK source. "This, when the very same BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Kishinchand Advani had vetoed our demand for the dismissal of the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham government in Tamil Nadu."

As the AIADMK leader points out, "All the conditions and cirucumstances that the BJP claimed to have existed for not imposing President's rule in Tamil Nadu existed in the case of Bihar, too. The President's reservations, as expressed in the Uttar Pradesh case last year, the Supreme Court's directions in the 'Bommai case', and the ruling coalition's lower numbers in the Rajya Sabha all affected both. Yet the BJP leadership used different yardsticks, different interpretations."

Asks the AIADMK source, "What was the great hurry in pushing through the Bihar dismissal issue, without even consulting the coalition partners at the appropriate level? If the BJP leadership says that it was for the government to decide, not for the coalition's coordination committee, how is it that some senior party leaders spoke words that came true later?"

In the AIADMK leader's view, the BJP has failed to either comprehend the role of coalition partners. "Some BJP leaders seem to think that coalition partners are an extension of the Sangh Parivar on all matters politics, and need not be consulted on various issues. They seem to think that we only needed to be told, and we would oblige without hesitation."

For all this, however, the AIADMK source is not sure whether the party will publicly back the Akali Dal or the Trinamul Congress, in their current differences with the BJP leadership. "They did not come to our help when we faced similar problems, and Trinamul Congress leader Mamata Banerjee even openly criticised the AIADMK and our leader Jayalalitha."

More importantly, a section of the AIADMK leadership feels, "The BJP got away with a unilateral decision on the Pokhran blasts, thanks to security reasons and the national euphoria that followed. Now, the party is getting exposed on one issue after another. If we sit back and relax, without getting embroiled in the BJP's problems, there will soon be greater appreciation of our own predicament, not only among our allies, but even among the Tamil Nadu voters, who did not approve of our earlier ways."

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