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Fernandes slams Jaya for preventing govt from functioning

Defence Minister George Fernandes has said that All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham supremo J Jayalalitha's threats and charges were not "just irresponsible behaviour," but attempts at preventing the government from functioning without realising what she is doing.

"I wouldn't call it just irresponsible behaviour. I believe there is method in the exercise that you do anything and everything that is possible to prevent a government from settling down to governance," he said in a television interview.

"Perhaps her thinking would be that I have a grievance and that grievance must be resolved and that is the priority. (I don't know) whether you should call it selfishness or not being able to realise the significance of what is happening."

Admitting that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government's image has suffered a "dent," Fernandes said, "What she is doing just now is indeed creating a problem but I don't think it is Madras alone... The government could not be rattled or made to look as being in difficulties only because of one person." He has met Jayalalitha a few times in a bid to resolve differences on behalf of the ruling coalition.

Asked if the AIADMK should be dropped from the government, Fernandes said it was a matter which should be discussed either in the co-ordination committee of the coalition or the Cabinet or at a certain level with the prime minister.

The defence minister refused to say that he was disagreeing with Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's view that AIADMK should be dropped from the government.

On Jayalalitha's failure to provide evidence so far that two senior official having links with the Prime Minister's Office had taken bribes for the transfer of Enforcement Director M K Bezbaruah, Fernandes said, "The prime minister has to think about it and act."

UNI

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