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Jaya plans to ask PM to pack off ministers facing charges

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha proposes to write to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee demanding the resignation or dismissal of those Union ministers facing court charges, following the example set by Sedapatti R Muthiah.

Muthiah had quit as Union surface transport minister last week, following the framing of charges against him by a special court in Madras. He allegedly amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income when he was the assembly speaker during the previous AIADMK regime in Tamil Nadu.

"There cannot be one set of rules for Muthiah and another for others. What applies to him should also apply to others in similar circumstances," Jayalalitha declared at a crowded media conference after the AIADMK executive committee meeting in Madras today.

She was responding to a question from the media on the demand made by Janata Party president, Dr Subramanian Swamy for the resignation of Buta Singh from the Union cabinet as the latter had been chargesheeted in the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs's bribery case.

Turning to the Cauvery water dispute, she said the Union government was duty-bound to implement the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal's interim award in favour of Tamil Nadu.

Asked about Karnataka's refusal to implement the interim award, she said there was no question of anyone bypassing the tribunal award.

On Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi's criticism that the national agenda of the BJP-led government had sought to postpone the settlement of the dispute till the framing of a national water policy, Jayalalitha said the national agenda had referred only to the settlement of river water disputes within a time-frame as per a national water policy.

Asked about similar criticism by the Tamil Maanila Congress, she said the DMK and the TMC had no right to criticise the AIADMK over the issue as they, as part of the previous United Front government at the Centre, had failed to make efforts to resolve the dispute.

She will not compromise on her demand for the immediate dismissal of the 'anti-democratic' DMK regime in Tamil Nadu on the ground of breakdown of law and order, Jayalalitha announced.

Jayalalitha said the executive passed a resolution seeking immediate Central intervention and removal of the Karunanidhi government in the state.

Asked whether her party had set a timeframe for the dismissal, she replied in the negative.

She said the AIADMK executive also passed a resolution demanding that the Union home ministry come out with a white paper on the activities of fundamentalists and extremists in Tamil Nadu and order a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into it, including the Coimbatore serial blasts and the subsequent seizure of huge cache of arms.

Replying to a question, Jayalalitha said she welcomed the despatch of a high-level Union home ministry team to Tamil Nadu to take stock of the law and order situation.

Jayalalitha wondered how the Central team could review the entire law and order situation in Tamil Nadu in one day. The time would be sufficient only to review the situation in the city, she said.

She reiterated her stand that the current situation in the state was far worse than 1990, when the DMK regime had allowed a free run to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam militants in the state.

On reports that Vajpayee had expressed satisfaction over the steps taken by the state government in the last one month to curb fundamentalism, she said: "We think that he has not been properly informed."

Asked whether she thought Vajpayee and Union Home Minister Lal Kishinchand Advani were going soft on the DMK regime, she said: "I do not want to attribute motives to them."

She said the AIADMK would launch an agitation in June against the DMK regime if it failed to return by May 31 the land cess already collected from the farmers, hike the procurement price of sugarcane to Rs 1,000 per tonne and ensure uninterrupted power supply for farm pumpsets. "What is the point in announcing waiver of land cess if the amount collected is not returned?" she asked.

UNI

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