TNCC suspects BJP conspiracy in Pawar episode

CHENNAI, May 17: Senior Congress I leader Sharad Pawar's letter to party president Sonia Gandhi seeking a Constitutional amendment to p...

CHENNAI, May 17: Senior Congress I leader Sharad Pawar8217;s letter to party president Sonia Gandhi seeking a Constitutional amendment to prevent foreigners from becoming the President, Vice-President and Prime Minister, has had its echo in the TNCC today, with PCC president Tindivanam K Ramamurthy demanding expulsion of Sharad Pawar, P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar from the membership of the party.

Seeing a conspiracy behind the Pawar episode, hatched by the BJP, certain vested interests and frustrated elements who failed to form a Third Front in the wake of the fall of the Vajpayee Government, Ramamurthy said 8220;I do not want to absolve the AIADMK either8221;, until the AIADMK clarified that it has had no hand in the Pawar affair.

Asserting that the timing of Pawar8217;s epistle to Sonia Gandhi on the foreigners8217; issue was significant, Ramamurthy said the issue was authored by the BJP to begin with, and when BJP leaders were in two minds as to whether to pursue the matter to its logical end on the electoral platform or not, Pawar stepped in, stealing the thunder.

Citing several instances when the issue cropped up in the past in different forms, the TNCC leader recalled that the DMK sought to divide the people propagating that the sons of the soil were Dravidians whereas others were the Aryans who came from the West.

Pawar, who hailed Sonia Gandhi as a leader who came on the scene to save the party and the people in March last year, has suddenly woken up to her foreign origin and has an hidden agenda of coming to power with the help of forces like the BJP, Ramamurthy charged.

When Sonia Gandhi had the opportunity of becoming the Prime Minister in 1991, but turned it down for personal reasons, Pawar did not say she should not take over the reins of the country, Ramamurthy argued, adding that in 1999, it looked like an attempt by enemies like the BJP to purchase enemies from within the Congress like Pawar.

Pawar8217;s effigy burnt

Sharad Pawar, who was party president Sonia Gandhi8217;s sole emissary on May 12 to hold talks with AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalitha on striking a possible alliance to take on the DMK-BJP combine in the coming Lok Sabha elections, chose to keep the TNCC leadership in the dark on what was going on at the Poes Garden. In spite of this, Tindivanam K Ramamurthy and others had to call on Pawar at the star hotel where he stayed to extend their greetings.

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Today it was the turn of the TNCC boys8217; to settle score with a leader who was once portrayed by the AICC as possible prime ministerial material. For the TNCC, Pawar turned an enemy, and his effigy was promptly burnt at Mylapore near the PCC office in Chennai, amidst curious onlookers and a ubiquitous police bandobust.