The Hindu : Front Page : Advani-Jayalalithaa meeting likely

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Thursday, Sep 13, 2007
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Advani-Jayalalithaa meeting likely

Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI: There is a “distinct possibility” of a meeting between Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalithaa in Chennai on September 19 or 20.

Authoritative sources in the BJP said that Mr. Advani is scheduled to participate in the State Council meeting of the party’s Tamil Nadu unit in Tirunelveli from September 18.

The BJP spokesperson, who is also in-charge of political affairs of the party in the State, Ravi Shankar Prasad, will be going there on September 17.

The groundwork for the expected meeting between Mr. Advani and Ms. Jayalalithaa has been done through telephonic calls between them. On September 7, Mr. Prasad had a long meeting with Ms. Jayalalithaa. Earlier, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh talked to her on the telephone.

Although nothing is officially said, senior party leaders here are not ruling out the possibility of a new synergy between the two parties that could lead to an alliance keeping in view the possibility of a mid-term Lok Sabha poll. Mr. Prasad would only say: “It was a courtesy call. Our exchange was very amicable.”

As of now, the two parties are eager to take the dialogue forward. It seems that Ms. Jayalalithaa brought up the issue of barring from high constitutional offices persons of “foreign origin”. Ms. Jayalalithaa is reported to have asked BJP leaders why they did not amend the Constitution to bar citizens of “foreign origin” from holding high constitutional offices, a senior BJP leader disclosed.

The BJP has decided not to bring up the issue of the arrest of Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswathi in November 2004 when Ms. Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister although at that time the BJP said the arrest was part of a conspiracy to bring a bad name to the Hindu religion. Asked about his party’s stand on the Sankaracharya issue Mr. Prasad said, “The issue is in the past.”

The BJP is also at pains to emphasise that the AIADMK and BJP views converge on many issues. The India-U.S. nuclear deal and Ram Sethu issues were mentioned in this connection.

Separately, the BJP, which is opposing the alignment of the Sethusamudram project, said it “condemned” the affidavit filed to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Government of India through the Ministry of Culture as it said that the petitioners had relied solely on mythological texts, which cannot be said to be historical records of past events. There was no way to ascertain the factual accuracy of those texts.

Mr. Prasad called this affidavit an “affront” to Hindutva and Hinduism. In response to persistent questions whether the BJP literally took as facts all that is mentioned in the Ramayana, Mr. Prasad said: “Yes, it is a matter of faith and of fact.”

It is also learnt that Mr. Advani contacted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to register the BJP’s objection to the government’s affidavit in the Supreme Court.

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