Join NDA, lead the front in TN: BJP to ADMK

He said the BJP had just expressed the desire to join hands with the AIADMK and no other move towards an alliance had been made by the BJP yet. ‘‘How do you know that there is no response from the AIADMK?’’ he shot back on questions on the stoic silence maintained by the AIADMK even after enough hints had been thrown by the BJP.

On Prime Minister Vajpayee’s bitter experience in 1999 when the AIADMK pulled out of the NDA that led to the fall of the government by a single vote in the Lok Sabha, Radhakrishnan said: ‘‘If you are going to go by the past actions, speeches or behaviour of political leaders and parties, then no party can have an alliance with any other.’’

Radhakrishnan backed up his statement with a compliment for the AIADMK on helping the BJP overcome its political ‘‘untouchable’’ status in the state by entering into an alliance in 1998.

Turning on an old ally, he slammed DMK chief Karunanidhi for his criticism of the BJP, which he called a ‘‘poisonous creature’’. ‘‘Why should he say such things only now, whereas the DMK had been party to the all the actions of the NDA till it quit the alliance? Was it the love of office or lack of self-respect that had Karunanidhi’s tongue tied at that point of time?’’