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Jayalalitha trying to do a balancing act

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

With the Left too following the Congress lead and refusing to take her bait, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J Jayalalitha is said to have reworked her strategy, keeping her options with the Bharatiya Janata Party-Pattali Makkal Katchi combine open. "She is trying to do a balancing act," said a source.

The AIADMK's decision to participate in the Left-sponsored nation-wide strike on Friday was an attempt to become acceptable to the Leftists, especially the Communist Party of India-Marxist.

"But the Left ignored the AIADMK completely. Not even its state-level leaders acknowledged the party's co-operation," the source pointed out.

Politically, the strike was aimed as much against the Congress as the BJP-led government at the Centre, argued the source. "With the Congress's stars shooting up after the assembly election, the Left felt isolated and wanted to remind the party, as also its own cadres, about the presence of a third force at the national level."

He may have a point. The strike was a success in states where the Left is ruling, or where the Communists have a substantial presence. Otherwise, it was only in Tamil Nadu, where the ruling DMK is seeking to revive its old ties with the CPI-M, that the strike was a success.

The DMK's ally, the Tamil Maanila Congress, and the AIADMK too supported the strike, the former because of its anti-BJP orientation, the AIADMK because it is loathe to let go of any opportunity to keep the BJP under pressure and also because it wanted to woo the Left.

For an alternative government to become possible under Congress leadership at the Centre, AIADMK sources concede the inevitability of the Left having to accept their party. "The Left may not have much problem supporting a Congress government from outside, with or without AIADMK participation, but the Congress may insist on the CPI-M too joining the ministry for its stability. That's where the Left may cause trouble for the AIADMK."

It is in this context that Jayalalitha's less-publicised statements become relevant. While the media highlighted her assertion that the AIADMK alone could pull down the government, she also made an aside: that there is no permanent misunderstanding.

Inferred the source: "She was only shadow-boxing with the BJP, wanting it to take her seriously and talk to her as equals." Even if she has to break the alliance at a later date, when the Congress is ready, she would like to put the blame on the BJP, if it refuses to take her hint and open up fresh talks.

Likewise, the source refers to Jayalalitha's near-turnaround on the PMK front. After announcing the formal break-up of the AIADMK-led alliance, and scoffing at the PMK for maintaining that it still considers her party 'friendly', Jayalalitha now seems to have reopened her PMK option.

Welcoming PMK founder S Ramadoss's statement in this regard, Jayalalitha clarified that she had only said "it was puzzling to note that some parties still claim to be constituents of the AIADMK front after having gone their separate ways and establishing direct contact with the BJP".

In another place in her statement on Friday, the AIADMK chief charged the BJP with being "accustomed to the divide-and-rule" policy, thus seeking to shift the blame away from the PMK.

In the absence of a positive signal from the Congress and the Left, Jayalalitha probably thought it wiser to keep the alliance with the PMK alive, if only to checkmate the options available to her rival, Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi, said the source.

For their part, the AIADMK sources refer to Union Information Minister Pramod Mahajan's recent assertion that party MPs could not be accommodated in the recent expansion of the Union Cabinet because Jayalalitha did not forward her list. "Coming as it does from Mahajan, a known Jaya-baiter, it is obvious that the BJP leadership, or Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, or both, are trying to drive a wedge within the AIADMK."

According to them, Mahajan was addressing not just the voter, but the AIADMK MPs. "Mahajan wants to tell our MPs that Jayalalitha alone is to blame for some of them not becoming ministers, though the vacancies left by Sedapati R Muthiah and R K Kumar have existed for some months now." If they are to be believed, the BJP was trying to go to the AIADMK MPs over Jayalalitha's head, conveying to them that she is putting personal interests and problems above the party's interests.

In this context, the AIADMK sources referred to the DMK MPs calling on Vajpayee on Friday, complaining against the Centre's counter-affidavit in Jayalalitha's Supreme Court case challenging the setting up of special courts in Tamil Nadu to try the corruption cases against her.

The new counter, seeking to vest the authority to appoint special courts exclusively with the Centre, runs counter to the affidavit filed earlier in the Madras high court, saying the power vests only with the state government.

The AIADMK sources said: "How is it that the DMK chose to make a representation to the prime minister in private when Parliament is in session? Obviously, the DMK did not want to make it a public issue, where other anti-BJP parties might have used it to embarrass the PM, who is also in charge of the personnel ministry."

DMK sources, however, denied such a construction. "It's a sensitive issue involving the highest court in the land, and we did not want to make a public issue out of it."

They said the party thought the change in the Centre's stand had something to do with the AIADMK's 'Kadambur' R Janarthanam, minister of state for personnel, being in charge of drafting the affidavit. "After meeting the PM, our delegation was convinced that he [Janarthanam] did not know about the affidavit. That's all there is to it."

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