True to her enigmatic style, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has, by endorsing the demand for the removal of her Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi, sent out a strong message that she cannot be taken for granted by anyone and that she is keeping her options open on her party’s alignments at the Centre. Her shift is a clear setback to the BJP, which had begun to feel that it could bank upon her on the Gujarat imbroglio, which has paralysed parliamentary proceedings this week. Indeed, Jayalalithaa had won the gratitude of the BJP when she forcefully condemned the Godhra train massacre, maintained a studied silence on the macabre killing of Muslims in Gujarat thereafter, launched the Annadanam scheme for distribution of free food at temples in the state and lent unambiguous support to the Vajpayee government on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill in Parliament. The bitter memories of the days when she had brought down the BJP-led coalition the last time around were gradually beginning to fade among the BJP’s rank and file when she dampened their spirits by demanding Modi’s head for the continuing violence in Gujarat. There are, evidently, two birds the AIADMK supremo wishes to fell with this one stone. First, she wishes to convey her displeasure and impatience over the BJP’s failure to jettison the DMK. She is seeking to tell the BJP that it must make up its mind as to whom it wants at its side, that it cannot have its cake and eat it too. The timing of her statement on Modi is also, quite possibly, dictated by the fact that an assembly byelection is due in Vaniyampadi, a Muslim stronghold, shortly. In the last elections, this was the lone seat she had allocated to her ally, the Muslim League, which had romped home the winner. The byelection has been necessitated by the demise of that Muslim League member. Had Jayalalithaa continued to cosy up to the BJP, her hold over the Muslim vote bank in Vaniyampadi would have been in serious jeopardy and that would have had its fallout on her Muslim support in the rest of the State too. This could well have meant serving a sizable vote bank — the Muslim population in Tamil Nadu is about 12 per cent — to the DMK on a platter. In a drive to push her principal adversary, the DMK, into a corner, Jayalalithaa has also cleverly sought to drive a wedge between the Congress and that party by reaffirming her strong line against the LTTE. The resolution passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly, seeking LTTE chief Prabhakaran’s extradition to India for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, would go down well with the Congress. All in all, the AIADMK supremo is working to ensure that neither the BJP, to which her party is now lending ‘issue-based support’, nor the Congress which aspires to displace the BJP at the Centre after the next elections, builds up a cosy relationship with the DMK. The game plan apparently is to keep everyone guessing and to reap the benefits of an approach that is designed to confuse.
