The Hindu : Jayalalithaa seeks absolute majority in State's interest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Jayalalithaa seeks absolute majority in State's interest

By K.V. Prasad and V.S. Palaniappan

By K.V. Prasad and

V.S. Palaniappan

COIMBATORE, MARCH 22. Kicking off her campaign in Coimbatore district, the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) general secretary and Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today asked the people to give an absolute majority to the AIADMK-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine to elect a Government at the Centre, which would protect the interests of Tamil Nadu besides making India a strong nation.

Campaigning for BJP candidates contesting from the Nilgiris and Coimbatore Lok Sabha constituencies, Master Mathan and C.P. Radhakrishnan, at meetings at Avanashi and near Irugur she continued her assault on the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA).

Targeting the DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, she said the BJP called his bluff that he did not signed the document on the National Democratic Alliance's agenda, which vowed to prevent persons of foreign origin assuming high office, when his party was a NDA constituent. She said the yardstick of the Left parties varied with parties, time and place.

The focus of her campaign remained on whether a son of the soil and a politically- experienced person or a foreigner and just a beginner in politics should become Prime Minister. Assuring that AIADMK would never give up the rights of the State, Ms. Jayalalithaa said that the electorate should exercise their franchise in favour of an alliance, which would do good to the State. She accused a former DMK Union Minister in the NDA Government of having derailed the projects mooted by her Government. The DMK and some of its present allies remained in the BJP-led Government so long they gained from it.

Ms. Jayalalithaa criticised the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, for giving a clean chit to DMK, though the Jain Commission in its interim report indicted it in Rajiv Gandhi assassination. The clean chit, given for electoral gains, came even as the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) was yet to be complete its inquiry. For the sake of power, Ms. Gandhi wanted to treat her husband's assassination a thing of the past.

Ms. Jayalalithaa came down on Pattali Makkal Katchi leader, Ramadoss, for trying to protect the interests of just one community.

Assailing Vaiko, general secretary, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, she asked: "For whose sake did Vaiko go to jail." "Was it for the sake of protecting the interests of Tamil Nadu or for wiping out a social evil? It was only for supporting a banned terrorist outfit (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) on a foreign soil."

Ms. Jayalalithaa campaigned at Avanashi, Arasur, Karumathampatti before addressing a public meeting near Irugur. At the conclusion of the meeting near Irugur, the three-time Congress MP from Coimbatore, C.K. Kuppusamy, and the president of the Tamil Nadu Congress Construction Workers' Union, P.R. Natarajan, joined the AIADMK in her presence.

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