The Hindu : Cong. produces `proof' of Jayalalithaa's support

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 31, 2002

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Cong. produces `proof' of Jayalalithaa's support

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 30. Joining issue with the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, who raked up the foreign origin issue of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, the Congress produced copies of the letter written by the former in April 1999 to the then President, K. R. Narayanan, pledging the AIADMK's support for a Congress Government led by Ms. Gandhi.

While the Congress produced "the evidence'' to refute Ms. Jayalalithaa's claim, it stopped short of burning all its bridges with the AIADMK; maintaining that this was not the time to talk of future alliances. "She was trying to falsify history. She demanded proof of having supported Ms. Gandhi's candidature for Prime Minister, and we have provided it,'' the Congress spokesman, S. Jaipal Reddy, said at a press conference here.

Though the Congress had claimed that such a letter existed when Ms. Jayalalithaa raised the foreign origin issue on Wednesday, the party released the document today after "digging into office records.''

After destabilising the Vajpayee Government by pulling out of the ruling alliance, Ms. Jayalalithaa wrote to Mr. Narayanan on April 21, 1999, that "the AIADMK has decided to extend support to a government to be formed by the Congress (I) led by Ms. Sonia Gandhi.'' This decision was taken earlier the same day at a meeting of the AIADMK Parliamentary Party. "This document proves that Ms. Jayalalithaa misled the nation, and she stands exposed,'' Mr. Reddy claimed.

Maintaining that the Chief Minister — whom he described as a "novice in national politics and an Alice in the Wonderland of New Delhi'' — had raised the issue only to "liberate herself from the criminal cases against her," he said: "When anybody shifts position on a single issue so many times, that position loses value.''

As for Ms. Jayalalithaa's contention that there was no question of the AIADMK aligning with the Congress as long as Ms. Gandhi was projected as the prime ministerial candidate, Mr. Reddy shot back: "Who is she to tell us how to run our party''

Meanwhile, the members of the Congress Working Committee and the Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled States issued statements criticising Ms. Jayalalithaa's "personal attack'' on Ms. Gandhi.

The Chief Ministers listed recent instances when Ms. Jayalalithaa tried to "endear herself" to the BJP. The electorate did not care for such "crude and grotesque attempts to flaunt one's patriotic credentials,'' they said adding that "her irreverent diatribes are a greater insult to the memory and martyrdom of Rajiv Gandhi than the acts and omissions of Vaiko and others whom she has incarcerated under POTA.''

Though these Chief Ministers in general pulled no punches while criticising Ms. Jayalalithaa — they accused her of moral bankruptcy and said that her mentor, M. G. Ramachandran, would have disapproved of this attitude — the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi, who released the joint statement, refused to be drawn into speculating on how this latest development would come to bear on the Congress-AIADMK relations.

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