US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Senior BJP leader joins AIADMK

V Maithreyan, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who resigned from the primary membership of the party following his suspension for anti-party activities yesterday, has joined the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

An AIADMK release said today that Maithreyan joined the party in the presence of AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalitha at her Poes Garden residence in Madras, last evening.

In a separate statement, Maithreyan said the coming together of the BJP and the DMK, which have different ideologies was nothing but "rank opportunism." He had fought from within to prevent the BJP from having any truck with the DMK.

He said the Vajpayee government had not dismissed the Karunanidhi government despite the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore last year, which had senior BJP leader and Union Home Minister L K Advani as the target and instead it was keen on getting the Rabri Devi government dismissed in Bihar. This had proved that the leaders were maintaining secret links with the DMK, he alleged.

He also alleged that the party leadership had adopted double-standards in dealing with corruption. The DMK government had foisted corruption cases against Jayalalitha and had detained her in jail. But, neither Vajpayee nor Advani had taken action against some DMK ministers and family members of Karunanidhi despite adequate evidence of corruption, he charged.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report