Jaya Rang Pm Over Reshuffle

AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha telephoned Prime Minister A B Vajpayee on August 15 to recommend changes in the previous evening's bureaucratic reshuffle, including the appointment of banking secretary C M Vasudev as revenue secretary instead of Javed Chaudhary.

A senior BJP leader claimed yesterday Jayalalitha's conversation with Vajpayee had been recorded. She is reported to have said her demand for N K Singh's transfer had not been fully met as the new revenue secretary was worse than him. "Let her come out openly and we will reveal the truth," the BJP leader said combatively.

Jayalalitha did demand the transfer of former enforcement director M K Bezbaruah and Singh, but Vajpayee did not realise that Chaudhary was not acceptable to her, he added. Chaudhary had acted against Jayalalitha's close associates while he was enforcement director a few years ago.

Some of Jayalalitha's recommendations as secretaries were unacceptable to the Prime Minister because they faced corruption charges, he said. The government could transfer a secretary at an ally's behest but not allow the name of the replacement to be dictated too, he argued.

The war of attrition between Jayalalitha and the BJP escalated after Vajpayee's rejection of Saturday's demands. BJP leaders wanted to ask AIADMK minister R Janardhanan to quit after he stated that the Prime Minister had not consulted him on the transfers. Vajpayee chided him but decided not to axe him.

Yesterday, however, both the BJP and Jayalalitha were combative. Pramod Mahajan, who is close to Vajpayee, publicly challenged Jayalalitha to substantiate her charge that some people close to the Prime Minister took bribes for the transfers.

"I sincerely hope she will not join the list of those politicians who make wild allegations but run away when asked to prove them," he told newsmen.

Jayalalitha complained in Chennai that the letter to her from the Prime Minister's principal secretary had been leaked to the mediabut had not yet reached her. This was "strange and also funny", she said. She also charged the Prime Minister's Office with having leaked the contents of her earlier letter on the subject to the Press.

Senior BJP leaders said Jayalalitha seemed to be trying to provoke Vajpayee to oust her from the coalition so that she was not blamed for bringing down the government. They, however, also decided not to oblige her, a senior BJP leader said. The party appears to have decided to provoke her to withdraw instead.

Calling her allegations "untrue," Mahajan said an inquiry could be ordered only after some prima facie evidence was provided. All things could not be referred to the CBI on mere allegations, he said.

Though Mahajan admitted that withdrawal of support by Jayalalitha would create problems for the government but it would not fall, he claimed. The only alternative to the Vajpayee government was a mid-term poll, Mahajan said. No one in the country was ready for elections, he said.

The Congress, which has only 140 MPs of its own, could not give the country a stable government, he held. The BJP, which has 180 MPs of its own, had the support of 70 MPs of its pre-poll alliance partners and 20 of the post-poll allies, he pointed out.