M A I N   N E W S

Central rule likely in TN
T. R. Ramachandran
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 1
The Atal Behari Vajpayee government is actively contemplating bringing Tamil Nadu under President’s rule in the wake of all constitutional norms being thrown to the winds and Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa pursuing her own agenda for political vendatta.

There are indications that Article 356 of the Constitution may be invoked to deal with the unprecedented situation in the southern state even if the Congress stoutly opposes such a move.

The fact-finding mission of the four-member NDA team to Tamil Nadu following the unprecedented and marauding arrest of former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi and two Central Ministers belonging to the DMK for rowdyism appears to the veering round to the view that the Jayalalithaa government should be dismissed.

The overbearing view in the Vajpayee government is that Ms Jayalalithaa has overstretched her agenda of settling personal scores with her arch rivals in the DMK overlooking constitutional propriety and the rule of law.

It is not as if the NDA government does not realise its predicament of taking recourse to Article 356. Even if the measure finds favour in the Lok Sabha, it is bound to fall by the wayside in the Rajya Sabha where the NDA is in a minority.

The Congress has affirmed that seeking the recall of Tamil Nadu Governor Fathima Beevi is politically motivated and that they will oppose any move to bring the state under central rule.

Certain constituents of the NDA are pitching for dismissing the Jayalalithaa government as in their opinion she should not have been invited in the first instance to form the government at Fort St George in Chennai irrespective of the fact that the AIADMK-led Secular Front had secured a landslide victory in the Assembly elections in May.

They contend that there was complete travesty of justice in allowing a convicted Ms Jayalalithaa who was disqualified from contesting the Assembly elections in assuming the office of Chief Minister. Ms Jayalalithaa on the other hand has consistently maintained that the people of Tamil Nadu had only given her the mandate to assume the stewardship of the state.

Strategists in the BJP believe that if imposition of Article 356 is thrown out of the window in Parliament, the Congress will have to accept responsibility for supporting a corrupt regime in Tamil Nadu.

Interestingly, discriminating Tamil Nadu Congress leaders are not averse in private to the Jayalalithaa government being dismissed because of the Chief Minister’s whimsical and peremptory style of functioning. This section feels that the Congress has nothing to lose as it has only seven seats in the state assembly.

Then, after the humiliation heaped by Ms Jayalalithaa on Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the run up to the Assembly elections in May it might serve the cause of the Congress in severing its ties with the AIADMK.