Muthiah Obeys Jaya, Quits Cabinet

The Bharatiya Janata Party government smoothly overcame a potentially damaging wrangle as surface transport minister Sedapatti R Muthiah yesterday resigned from the Union cabinet under directions from AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha.

Charges were framed against the minister in a corruption case on Tuesday by a Chennai court.

A Rashtrapati Bhavan communique said Muthiahs resignation was accepted by President K R Narayanan. Union law minister Thambi Durai, another AIADMK nominee in the cabinet, will now hold additional charge of the surface transport portfolio.

BJP leaders had been worried on Tuesday about whether Jayalalitha would agree to allow her nominee to resign and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee discussed the situation with his cabinet colleagues after a cabinet meeting on Tuesday evening.

However, after Jayalalitha agreed, Muthiah cut short a train journey to his constituency near Madurai late on Tuesday night and took the early morning flight to the capital.

Immediately after reaching Delhi, he drove to the Prime Ministers residence, accompanied by Thambi Durai, and handed over his resignation.

The BJPs uneasy relationship with Jayalalitha and her flock of 27 MPs is the most potentially destabilising aspect of the government. Jayalalitha wants the DMK government in Tamil Nadu dismissed but Vajpayee is adamant that he will not do this.

Muthiah said he had resigned on moral grounds and in tune with his partys commitment to maintain high standards in public life. However, he accused Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi of foisting false cases against him and his family out of political vendetta and vowed to fight them.

Charging Karunanidhi with taking the law into his own hands, he said the Chief Minister had, through a government order, directed transfer of cases pertaining to AIADMK leaders to the special courts without a judicial order.

He said AIADMK would press for action against Karunanidhi based on the basis of the findings of the Sarkaria Commission which categorically stated that Karunanidhi had received illegal gratification on various grounds.

Asserting that his party would mount pressure on the Centre for the dismissal of the DMK government because of the deteriorating law and order situation in the state, he asked how the people of Tamil Nadu could allow the state to turn into another Punjab or Jammu & Kashmir.

Subtly bracketing himself with Jayalalitha, who also faces criminal charges, Thambi Durai said party leaders would get justice in due course as it is a temporary phenomena and added that politicians taking vendetta on opponents would not work.