The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Jayalalithaa's participation, a morale booster for AIADMK

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 29, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Jayalalithaa's participation, a morale booster for AIADMK

S. Dorairaj

NEWSANALYSIS A message to DMK that she will not back down from political fight

Jayalalithaa

CHENNAI: General secretary of the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) Jayalalithaa, by participating in the debate on the motion of thanks to the Governor's address in the Assembly on Saturday, appears to have sent a message to the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its allies in the Democratic Progressive Alliance that she will not back down from a political fight despite the electoral defeat.

Informal discussions are on in the rival camps to reshape their strategies against the backdrop of reports that the former Chief Minister is likely to don the role of the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, after a gap of 17 years.

When Ms. Jayalalithaa made it clear at a press conference held after the election of the AIADMK's Legislature Party functionaries that she would not rule out the possibility of participating in important debates though she had decided against attending the House as per the advice of her party colleagues, none thought that such an eventuality would come so soon.

The decision to suspend the party MLAs for the rest of the session for "unruly behaviour" in the Assembly, provided an opportunity to Ms. Jayalalithaa to attend the House and "take on the Treasury benches single-handedly," AIADMK leaders say.

Her quick decision to participate in the debate clearly indicated that she did not want to miss the chance of directly confronting the DMK with its own promises made during the May 8 Assembly elections and raising questions about the feasibility of implementing them. Though she was able to raise the issue on many counts during her electioneering, the Assembly provided a common platform to elicit reply from the Treasury benches on the spot. According to sources in the AIADMK, the party men are jubilant over Ms. Jayalalithaa's participation in the debate. "It is a morale booster for us. We are immensely relieved that the poll debacle has not come in the way of our leader guiding us at this crucial juncture. You can gauge the significance of her present mood by comparing it with her decision immediately after the 1996 polls to keep a low profile," said a party activist.

The issues raised by her, with particular reference to the Government's announcements on cooperative loan waiver and distribution of wasteland to landless farm workers, are bound to reflect on the ensuing local body elections in the rural areas, they say.

Ms. Jayalalithaa has tried to kill two birds with one stone: keeping the ruling DMK in a tight spot by "exposing the hollowness" of its poll promises and raising doubts about the feasibility of their implementation; allaying apprehensions in the minds of the AIADMK activists about their future prospects and posing a question to the Congress and the communist parties on how they are going to make the State Government fulfil the promises, the AIADMK leaders claim. "This is only a beginning and many more could be in the offing," says an AIADMK activist referring to the issues raised by Ms. Jayalalithaa in the Assembly.

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