UF divided over backing Cong govt: Karunanidhi
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M Karunanidhi today admitted that differences had cropped up in the United Front over extending support to the Congress to form a government at the Centre.
Talking to the media in Madras, he said he was yet to receive
intimation about the convening of the UF core committee meeting. Ironically, the committee will meet this evening, following the arrival of UF convener and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in the Capital.
Karunanidhi also effected another somersault on the issue of supporting a Congress government at the Centre. The chief minister, who had earlier stated that the DMK would go by the UF decision, today said that his party would take a final decision after discussing the combine's stand at the DMK's administrative or executive committee.
On Naidu's reported statement that the Congress had no moral right to seek the UF's support, Karunanidhi said he could
not comment on the decisions of other parties.
Denying that he had deputed a Cabinet colleague to meet Naidu, Karunanidhi said Arcot N Veerasamy had gone to Hyderabad to see his daughter.
Asked whether the Congress had approached him seeking
his party's support, he said neither the Congress nor the BJP
had approached him.
He ridiculed All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha for demanding the dismissal of the DMK government, saying no state government could be dismissed on the basis of the mandate given in a Lok Sabha poll. The Supreme Court had also endorsed this in the S R Bommai case, he pointed out.
Karunanidhi said his government could not be dismissed in the wake of the serial bomb blasts in Coimbatore as such blasts had taken place in Maharashtra, Kashmir and Delhi.
''The Centre is in charge of the maintenance of law and order in
Delhi and, just because there are blasts in the capital, can you
dismiss the central government?'' he asked.
The fact that the DMK won the by-election to the Aruppukottai and Coonoor assembly seats was proof that there was no anti-incumbency verdict in the state, he said.
Karunanidhi said the bomb blasts in the state had affected
the poll prospects of the DMK-Tamil Maanila Congress combine. This was evident from the fact that the DMK candidate, who won from Thanjavur, had secured 5,000 to 10,000 votes more than his rival in all but Valangaiman assembly segment, where four people were killed in a blast in a rice mill at Saliamangalam.
Asked if there was any political background to the blasts, he
said the serial blasts in Coimbatore were definitely the handiwork of Islamic extremist forces. It was unfortunate that, instead of
condemning the blasts, some parties had exploited them for electoral gain, he said.
The possibility of involvement of any political party in the
blasts could be known only when the Gokulakrishnan Commission probing the blasts submitted its report, he added.
On Jayalalitha moving the Madras high court, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the serial blasts, Karunanidhi said he was never averse to such a probe.
The government would not oppose a probe by the agency
while filing its counter in the case and would also not go in
appeal if the court ordered the probe, unlike Jayalalitha who had
opposed CBI probes during her tenure, he said.
UNI
Elections '98
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