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Congress stand sparked Jaya volte face

There is no question of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham withdrawing support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre, party supremo Jayalalitha has said.

''Our support continues, we are part of the government,'' she told the media in Madras on Tuesday.

Jayalalitha also expressed similar views in her brief speech at a party function earlier, where 1,500 Dravida Munnetra Kazagham-Tamil Maanila Congress members were reportedly admitted into the AIADMK.

''It's all the work of the media,'' Jayalalitha said on the AIADMK's earlier decision on ''review'' of support to the Vajpayee government. If she were to be believed, no such situation had prevailed at any time.

Jayalalitha also said there was no question of her party ''blackmailing'' the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership on the question of support. ''Blackmailing'' meant that she had obtained some benefits in return, but that was not the case now, she said and urged the media not to use such ''demeaning'' phrases in relation to her party.

Interestingly, Jayalalitha also said that whatever party chairman and former minister V R Nedunchezhiyan had said about the AIADMK support to the Vajpayee government held good.

Only last week, she had sort of issued a clarification that both the 'support and the review' continued when Nedunchezhiyan publicly stated that the AIADMK would not withdraw support.

Nedunchezhiyan had repeated himself over the weekend, saying there had never been any question of the party withdrawing support to the Vajpayee government. He went to the extent of saying that the AIADMK had never threatened to withdraw support on the Cauvery waters accord.

Whatever she may be saying now, there is no denying that Jayalalitha has backtracked on her earlier ''threat'' to the BJP leadership. As may be recalled, her threat to ''review'' support was made before television cameras at her scheduled media meet to condemn the Cauvery accord.

If at all Jayalalitha was correct, it is in her charge that the media had caused it all. As senior journalists and political observers present at the media meet recalled later, a barrage of questions was what forced her to say what she possibly did not intend saying -- or, possibly did not mean.

Obviously, Jayalalitha is under pressure to go back on her threat, and come to terms with the BJP following the Congress's disinterest in forming an alternative government. The Congress' Panchmarhi declaration has made it more than clear that the party leadership is in no great hurry to topple the Vajpayee government, in the first place.

It's obvious Jayalalitha had been misled into believing that the Congress's ''toppling tradition'' would continue even under Sonia Gandhi.

When that has not come about, despite the overtures from the AIADMK, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, she has been wary of antagonising the BJP against the combined strength of the ruling DMK and its TMC ally.

Of immediate concern for Jayalalitha is the possibility of the BJP leadership jettisoning the AIADMK in the DMK's favour. Though they are not sure how the BJP leadership would add up the additional numbers that they would have to muster, AIADMK sources were convinced that they were in for the boot.

''The BJP leadership has always been sympathetic to our concerns and problems,'' says an AIADMK leader, obviously referring to the criminal cases pending against many of them.

''They only wanted time, and wanted to be left alone in doing things, their own way. Only our leadership was suspicious, and seems to have learnt its lessons.''

He feels the AIADMK leaders would continue to benefit from the ''BJP sympathy'', like they did when the central government standing counsel handling Foreign Exchange Regualtion Act cases involving Sasikala Natarajan, Jayalalitha's live-in confidante, was sacked last fortnight.

Other sources also refer to what they foresee as the ''inevitability'' of the BJP having to ''make an example out of the AIADMK''. In this context, they refer to previous instances of a weak prime minister putting down one-time allies after gaining strength.

One leader said, ''Indira Gandhi did it to the DMK, and the Communists after her 1971 poll victory. She contributed to the split in the DMK, and ensured a division between the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, after they all had backed her in the days following the 1969 Congress split, and `benefitted' from it. Later, P V Narasimha Rao despatched Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy to Tamil Nadu when Jayalalitha tried to divide his Congress in the state with the resignation of Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy from the Union government.''

Though Jayalalitha sought to ignore the threats to the AIADMK front by saying that her Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham was only a ''five-year-old child'' and her AIADMK was a 26-year-old ''warrior'', she is also anxious about the possibility of the MDMK and the Pattali Makkal Katchi letting her down in the BJP's favour.

''Already, the two parties have clearly expressed their preference for the BJP over the AIADMK on the 'support issue'. If they take it to its logical conclusion, the AIADMK may be without electoral allies that we would badly need.''

There is also one other reason that some sources outside the party talk about. ''The AIADMK leadership is convinced that the BJP is all for taking the MDMK and the PMK with it, and ally with the DMK. That would become possible only if the AIADMK gives it a new reason now. Jayalalitha doesn't want to yield, and wants to ensure that the BJP doesn't get an 'excuse' to ditch the AIADMK in the DMK's favour.''

In this context, he refers to 'possible provocative actions' by the BJP in the coming months, forcing the AIADMK to withdraw support. ''I will not be surprised if the two AIADMK ministers at the Centre are dropped, for instance,'' the source says adding, ''The BJP strategists seem to favour the DMK as a long-term ally than the AIADMK.''

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