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Jaya's is a strategic retreat, not total surrender

The 'resigned casualness' of the Bharatiya Janata Party, possible splits in her own All India Anna Dravida Munnethra Kazhagam as well as in the alliance led by it, and the Congress's unwillingness to form an alternative government -- particularly with the AIADMK in it -- were all behind J Jayalalitha's decision to continue her support to the A B Vajpayee government, according to informed sources.

"She got the message a little too late for a face-saving strategy, but the BJP was resigned to its fate early in the current round," says a source. "It was a policy -- but might have also been a strategy -- that the BJP leadership decided early on that it would not yield further ground to the AIADMK. With the Congress unwilling to take the risk, Jayalalitha climbed down, much like her alliance partner Vazhappadi Ramamurthy who she criticised a week earlier for a similar act."

The sources also deny that any kind of deal had been struck when Jayalalitha met Union Coal Minister Dilip Ray and Defence Minister George Fernandes separately.

About Jayalalitha's meeting with Buta Singh the same day, a source says, "If she thought that she would either threaten or confuse the BJP leadership, she was mistaken. They were not interested in keeping the government, and might have been happier going back to the people, again as the 'champions' of principled politics."

Indications are that Jayalalitha's is only a strategic retreat, not a total surrender. In this context, however, the sources concede that the intervention of George Fernandes and Akali Dal leader Surjit Singh Barnala would have a sobering effect on her.

As friends of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, they, along with Telugu Desam supremo N Chandrababu Naidu, had ensured that the Tamil Nadu government would not be dismissed. Now it is also up to them to work out a via-media for Jayalalitha to feel less threatened by the DMK regime, for her to leave the BJP in peace.

Jayalalitha's future moves will also be based on how she perceives the Congress as a dependable ally after the current fiasco, and the Congress's views on her political behaviour.

There is no question of any senior BJP leader visiting Madras for formal talks with Jayalalitha. "She would be received courteously, and heard in patience. Nothing more, nothing less," a source says, in an obvious reference to the pending cases against the AIADMK supremo and her senior aides.

When the chips were nearly down, Jayalalitha discovered that the Congress, and not the AIADMK, could decide the fate of the Vajpayee government. She also discerned that not all her allies, not even the once-loyal Pattali Makkal Katchi with four MPs, would stay with the AIADMK if she decided to part company with the BJP.

"There were also open talk of desertions from the AIADMK's Lok Sabha members," says the source. "Though nothing could be confirmed, nothing could be ruled out either. Even an AIADMK withdrawal of support might have turned out to be a damp squib under the circumstances. The AIADMK could have paid a heavier price than imagined." As he points out, Jayalalitha lost no time in giving party posts to suspect MPs.

Jayalalitha was possibily misled by her advisors, both within and outside the party. "Those inside feared the Karunanidhi government, and those outside had their own personal agenda," a source says. By the time she discovered the truth she could do nothing but a climb-down, as the BJP by then had lost its patience and hopes, and was resigned to its fate.

If Jayalalitha had withdrawn support, says the source, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee might have happily walked to Rashtrapati Bhavan, and laid all his cards openly before the President. Then it would have been for the latter to decide on the future course, in which the AIADMK with all its problems might have been rendered irrelevant.

"Maybe, Vajpayee could have proved his majority without the AIADMK's support, maybe the Congress would have been invited to form a government, maybe, it would have all led to fresh polls,'' he adds. ''Jayalalitha and the AIADMK could not afford the risks, hence her climb-down."

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