Bjp Admits To Aiadmk Pressure

After having denied a couple of days earlier that AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha had demanded the dismissal of the Tamil Nadu government and that the finance and law portfolio be given to her Tamil allies, BJP leaders yesterday acknowledged that these were indeed her demands. They added that they could not agree.

She is said to want Subramaniam Swamy of the Janata Party to be made finance minister and TRC chief VK Ramamurthy to be made law minister. The demands, apparently with a view to handling the income tax and other cases against her, have angered the BJP and its other allies. Both Swamy and Ramamurthy won with her support.

 

Jayalalitha has also told senior BJP leaders that she aimed to regain the chief ministership of the state. These leaders are aware that she would like to use the central government as an instrument for this.

The partys key strategists were yesterday despondent, saying that if Jayalalitha could insist on such conditions before a government was formed, she could go to any extent later. There was no chance of the BJP yeilding the finance ministry, a party office-bearer said. Another said the BJP should instead prepare to sit in the opposition.

On this and on misusing Article 356, the BJP received unstinted support from its supporting parties, more particularly the Trinamul Congress, the Shiv Sena, the Akali Dal and the Samata Party, though leaders of these parties refused to acknowledge they had confirmation about Jayalalithas demands.

Portfolio allocation was the Prime Ministers prerogative and none could bully him to allocate certain prtfolios to a particular party, Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee told the Business Standard.

Banerjee appeared to have dropped her idea to set up a coordination panel to coordinate activities of the BJPs supporting parties. Such a panel could be set up after a government is formed and, therefore, the first task was formation of a government, she said.

Banerjee expressed strong reservations about the dismissal of a state government on political grounds. It could not come as a demand, she said and pointed out that she had not demanded dismisssal of the Left front government in West Bengal. Trinamul unlike the AIADMK was not an alliance partner of the BJP, she further pointed out saying that We had seat adjustments only and we did not even share political platform.

Banerjee also held that a state government could not be dismissed due to demand from a political party. She pointed out that she did not demand dismisssal of the Left front government in West Bengal because of this reason.

Even the Samata Party which has been agitating for dismissal of the Rashtriya Janata Dal government in Bihar refused to say that Article 356 should be used to achieve this goal. The Presidents rule could not be imposed just like that and it was the last option, party general secretary Jaya Jaitley said. Dismissal of government cannot be a bargaining chip, she added.

There was every possiblity that a BJP-led government would bring the corruption cases against RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav to a logical conclusion, she claimed. Once Laloo Yadav was out of Bihar politics, the RJD government would fall of its own contradictions leading to fresh assembly polls, she said. There would be, thus no need for use of Article 356, she explained.

Akali Dals Surjit Singh Barnala held that the Article should be used sparingly. The Akali Dals election manifesto had talked of the need to scrap article 356. The Akali leaders, however, appear to have changed stance after realising they were isolated on the issue. Ours is a minoriy view but we want it to be used sparingly, he said. The DMK government in Tamil Nadu was working well and did not warrant Article 356, he added.

Shiv Sena leader Madhukar Sarpotdar held that the bomb explosions in Tamil Nadu could not become an excuse for imposition of Presidents rule. Maharashtra also witnessed bomb explosions in January 1993, he pointed out. The article could not be used for political ends, he held. On allocation of portfolio, he said that it was Vajpayees prerogative.