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Swamy blames 'Mannarkudi mafia' for estrangement with Jaya

Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy today castigated the style of functioning of foe-turned-friend-turned-foe J Jayalalitha, All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary, and blamed the "Mannarkudi mafia" (Jayalalitha's aide Sasikala Natarajan and her relatives) for his exit from the AIADMK-led front.

Addressing a crowded press conference in Madras, a visibly annoyed Dr Swamy said the recent developments had only shown that Jayalalitha's arbitrary and arrogant style of functioning had not changed.

"It also becomes clear that Jayalalitha is not her own person, but putty clay in the hands of a criminal lumpen cabal which seeks to control her physically and mentally," he said.

Dr Swamy said he could have earned Jayalalitha's displeasure for three reasons. The prime reason, he said, could be that Sasikala and her relatives, who still maintain close links with the Bharatiya Janata Party, feared that he would pose a danger to their "nefarious designs".

Asserting that he would never go back to Jayalalitha even if she relents, he said: "Even if I have one-tenth of the brain the public gives me credit for... I will never join Jaya again."

Declining to say whether he would join the Third Front floated by the Tamil Maanila Congress, Dr Swamy, who insisted that he would seek re-election to the Lok Sabha from Madurai, said he would reveal his future course of action at a public meeting in the temple town on July 24.

Disagreeing with a suggestion that he had snapped ties with the AIADMK because he was denied a seat, Dr Swamy said it was not just a question of seat, but the behaviour of a party leader. It would have been civilised of Jayalalitha if she had either telephoned him or written to him stating that she was discarding him, he said.

His refusal to withdraw the criminal cases he had filed against her, his direct accusation of persons close to her for having a hand in former Union minister and AIADMK MP Sedapatti R Muthiah's "fumbling" during the voting on the confidence motion moved by prime minister A B Vajpayee and his complaint against a senior AIADMK office-bearer for involvement in a bogus land allotment racket in Madurai could have been the other reasons for earning Jayalalitha's displeasure, he said.

During the hour-long press conference, Dr Swamy also made some startling disclosures about the famous tea party he had hosted in Delhi at which he brought Jayalalitha and Congress President Sonia Gandhi together, involvement of a former AIADMK minister in the acid attack on former Tamil Nadu IAS officer and his party's state unit president V S Chandralekha and how Jayalalitha was steadfast in withdrawing support to the Vajpayee government.

Dr Swamy said that in one of his meetings with Jayalalitha in April, he had told her that Muthiah's failure to vote in the confidence motion was not due to the malfunctioning of the voting machine. Persons close to her (Jayalalitha) had assured the BJP they would ensure that the confidence motion was not defeated, he claimed.

Dr Swamy disclosed that he had arranged the tea party on the request of the AIADMK leader.

Pointing out Jayalalitha's admission while addressing a meeting organised by the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam recently that she had insisted on pulling down the Vajpayee government, Dr Swamy said he never asked her to withdraw support to the government.

He had only cautioned her that the BJP could not be trusted as it had ditched leaders like Morarji Desai, Mayawati and Lakshmi Parvathi. But it was Jayalalitha who had said that she had made up her mind to pull down the government, he claimed.

Jayalalitha, who discussed the acid attack case with him, had blamed one of her erstwhile cabinet colleagues for the incident. When the former minister was given a prominent position in the party, he asked Jayalalitha why she did not take action against him. Her reply was that she "did not like Chandralekha."

Declining to disclose the name of the minister, Dr Swamy said he had already written to the Central Bureau of Investigation about the involvement of the minister and would pursue the case.

Dr Swamy said his exclusion from the AIADMK front was a surprise to him as Jayalalitha had not given any indication of her unhappiness with him during their earlier meetings.

In his June 21 meeting with her, Jayalalitha had asked him why he was not withdrawing the cases he had filed against her. He had told her that the cases could not be withdrawn as they were in the nature of public interest litigation.

The second occasion was when she wanted to know whether he knew why Muthiah had fumbled during the voting on the confidence motion. In the third meeting, he had told her about the notorious activities of a senior office-bearer of the party in Madurai and the pendency of a CBI case against another office-bearer for defrauding banks by pledging bogus tractor registration certificates, he said.

Dr Swamy said Jayalalitha had accused Union Minister Vazhapadi Ramamurthy and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Vaiko of betraying her, but she had proved now that she too had no concept of loyalty or a sense of gratitude.

He said his party was opposed to both the BJP and the AIADMK and the people, especially the minorities, should vote for a combination which would defeat the two parties.

On the corruption cases pending against Jayalalitha, he said it was because of the incompetence of the ruling DMK, that the cases could not be conducted at a fast pace.

UNI

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