AIADMK front a'`bundle of contradictions': Vajpayee

By M.R. Venkatesh

CHENNAI, MAY. 7. The Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, tonight ridiculed the AIADMK-led front for the May 10 Assembly polls as a ``bundle of contradictions'', even while asserting that the DMK- inclusive NDA alliance had emerged as a model for integrating the backward classes, Dalits and the minorities.

Terming the emergence of the AIADMK-TMC-Congress-Left front in Tamil Nadu as a ``strange alliance'', led by a party whose leader had been convicted on corruption charges and ``barred from contesting the polls'', Mr. Vajpayee, referring to the AIADMK general secretary, Ms. Jayalalitha's predicament said, ``nobody knows who their Chief Minister is.''

Addressing an NDA election rally on the Marina here, Mr. Vajpayee, in particular, hit out at the Congress and communists, who while being in alliance in Tamil Nadu, were however in `bitter combat' in Kerala.

Pointing out that in Pondicherry, the Congress did not want an alliance with the PMK, he wondered how they could go together in Tamil Nadu, ``conveniently forgetting'' that the Congress had some time back demanded a ban on the PMK (for the latter's pro- LTTE stance).

Charging the Congress with not having ``learnt any lesson'' and not given up its habit of ``destabilisation of India's polity'', Mr. Vajpayee said they had tried the same thing by ``unconstitutionally demanding'' the NDA's resignation at the Centre over the Tehelka tapes issue, even after the Government had agreed for an impartial investigation.

CMs' meet soon

Promising to look into the farmers' problems in the context of the WTO agreement, Mr. Vajpayee said a meeting of Chief Ministers would be convened soon. Tamil Nadu's long-pending demand for the implementation of the Sethu Samudram project would be fulfilled and steps taken to divert the West-flowing rivers into the State after consultations with Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Asserting that there was no discrimination against the minorities under the BJP-led NDA, Mr. Vajpayee took the occasion to reiterate that their ``interests will be fully protected''.

Complementing the DMK leader and Chief Minister, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, for having brought the backward and Dalit organisations into the State NDA with `far-sightedness', Mr. Vajpayee sought another five-year mandate for the DMK in Tamil Nadu as it had given a ``good and effective Government''. Communal and caste tensions had also been substantially reduced, he added.

Even as Mr. Vajpayee took pride in the NDA having emerged as a ``stable, purposive, non-Congress alternative,'' Mr. Karunanidhi in his address said the CPI(M) leader, Mr. Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and the Congress president, Ms. Sonia Gandhi, had been accusing each other's party of being ``non-secular'' in Kerala and West Bengal. This itself was the best refutation of the DMK- led front being dubbed ``communal'', he said.

The DMK had given a ``blemishless rule'' in the last five years, Mr. Karunanidhi said and pledged to continue the same if returned to power. Senior NDA leaders, including Mr. Jana Krishnamurthy, Mr. Venkaiah Naidu and Mr. Murasoli Maran, were present.

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