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No imminent threat to govt: Jaya

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha has said there was no imminent threat to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Asked if the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government would fall, she told the media at the Madras airport on her arrival from New Delhi yesterday, "There is no such possibility as of now."

She, however, reiterated her party's demand that the government either transfer Defence Minister George Fernandes to another portfolio or reinstate sacked naval chief Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat.

She said there was no harm in ordering a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Bhagwat issue if the government had nothing to hide.

Asked about the government's stand that classified information could not be discussed in Parliament, she said, "I don't think anything should be kept away from Parliament."

On the prime minister rejecting her demand, Jayalalitha said she had urged him to reconsider his decision against ordering a JPC probe.

"Let us wait and see," was her reaction to Vajpayee's statement that her meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi was 'a storm in a tea cup'.

About her comment that her meeting with Sonia would create a 'political earthquake,' Jayalalitha said it was a 'jovial remark'.

Asked if the meeting would result in her party's increased cooperation with the Congress, she said the question did not arise since the AIADMK was part of the government. There was nothing unusual about this as both the AIADMK and Congress have been allies for a long time earlier, she added.

Stating that the current political scenario was in a flux, she said anything could happen in Indian politics.

Earlier, before leaving New Delhi for Madras, she said her party would keep its options open on whether to vote with the Opposition in Parliament on the JPC probe issue.

Replying to another question, she said that perhaps the 'political earthquake' had already begun.

Jayalalitha's stance on the JPC was in sharp contrast to the one she had adopted at the BJP-led coalition's coordination committee meeting. Talking to the media after the meeting, she had said that the AIADMK would go by the decision of the constituents of the coalition to reject the demand for a JPC probe.

UNI

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