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Meeting with Jaya "highly successful" says Jaswant

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's emissary and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Jaswant Singh today met All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha for 155 minutes at her bungalow at Payyanur, on the outskirt of Madras.

The move is seen as Vajpayee's bid to buy peace with the AIADMK supremo whose demand for the removal of two senior ministers -- Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde and Urban Development Minister Ram Jethmalani -- from the Cabinet has triggered a crisis.

Singh, who arrived in Madras last night, left for Payyanur this morning, where Jayalalitha has been staying for the past few days.

He is believed to have carried a special message for Jayalalitha from Vajpayee underlining the need to resolve the differences between the coalition partners internally and not to rush to the media.

Singh, who played a key role in securing the participation of the AIADMK-led allies in the Vajpayee government, described his visit last night as 'private and political'.

Talking to reporters at a hotel on Saturday after the encounter with Jayalalitha, Singh said the meeting was "highly successful." The AIADMK leader, he said, had agreed to attend the coordination committee meeting early next month. The date of the meeting will be decided by the prime minister in consultation with other coalition leaders, he said.

Singh claimed that during their meeting, Jayalalitha had not raised the demand for dropping Hegde and Jethmalani. The prime minister was seized of all issues that had been raised through the media, the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission added. He said the BJP-led government would be strengthened followiong his meeting with Jayalalitha.

He gave enough hints that the prime minister would not concede Jayalalitha's demand for dropping Hegde and Jethmalani from the Union Cabinet, by saying that the removal or induction of ministers was the prime minister's prerogative alone.

When asked whether the removal of then communications minister Buta Singh from the ministry was unrelated to Jayalalitha's demand for dropping of tainted members, Jaswant Singh said, "you can make your own inferences".

Asked whether the prime minister had sent Jayalalitha any message, requesting her not to air her grievances in the media and sort it out internally, Jaswant Singh said the AIADMK leader was "an experienced politician and she need not be told how to conduct herself."

However, he told reporters outside the Payyanur farm house where the meeting took place that the essence of the success of a coalition was restraint.

Asked whether the government shared Hegde's perception that it was better to seek a fresh mandate rather than being blackmailed by Jayalalitha, he said seeking a fresh mandate was neither the view of the BJP-led government nor of the coalition, but could be that of a constituent.

There was nothing unusual in his meeting with Jayalalitha, he claimed, since it was part of the process of consultation with coalition partners started by him as convener of the coordination committee. He would meet leaders of other constituent parties whenever necessary, he added.

In Delhi, Hegde refused to react to the AIADMK ministers's diatribe -- ''shut up or get out'' -- against him, but said ''wait for a few days, I will give you an excellent interview''.

The Lok Shakti supremo evaded a volley of questions from a crowd of journalists at a FICCI function and preferred not to disclose whether he has sent his ''comments'' to the prime minister who had sought his views on Jayalalitha's allegations against him.

Asked whether he had pleaded for a snap poll in the wake of unabated bickerings withing the ruling front, Hegde smiled and said, ''Wait for a few days, I will give you an excellent interview.''

The Lok Shakti leader's reluctance to comment on the controversy assumes significance in the wake of Jaswant Singh's peace initiative.

UNI

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