The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Karunanidhi's change of tack motivated: BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Karunanidhi's change of tack motivated: BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, NOV. 23. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reacted strongly to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M. Karunanidhi's statement attributing "political and personal motives" to the arrest of the Kanchi Sankaracharya, Sri Jayendra Saraswathi.

The DMK leader came out with the statement after having expressed his "happiness" about the arrest, "humiliated" the Sankaracharya in every way and "unleashed a litany of indecent criticism and stories" through the media, the BJP's State president, C.P. Radhakrishnan, said in a statement here today.

Describing the DMK chief as an "embodiment of contradictions," the BJP leader said Mr. Karunanidhi's latest statement was not a result of any change of heart but there was a motive to it. "If he takes such a stand now, he might have expected that the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, would make more efforts to justify her "hasty step" and thus incur further displeasure of the devotees of the Sankaracharya."

The BJP was not prepared to believe Mr. Karunanidhi who, throughout his long career, "insulted" Hindu religion and the beliefs of Hindus.

`Divide and rule'

Referring to the DMK leader's caution that the BJP should not whip up communal passion, Mr. Radhakrishnan said that after Independence, the Congress, the Communists and the Dravidian parties were adopting the British policy of `divide and rule' and fomenting divisions among religions by talking of pseudo-secularism. They had been following the policy of treating minorities as vote-banks. They were afraid that their plan of remaining in power without any achievement to their credit and by using the vote-bank politics would be exposed if the majority population, with a sense of self-respect, started exercising its franchise with clarity. This was why they shed "crocodile tears" over communal riots. Mr. Karunanidhi's observation was also based on this logic, said Mr. Radhakrishnan.

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