New Delhi, Mar 12: The relations between AIADMK and Bharatiya Janata Party hit a new low mainly over two sensitive portfolios- finance and law.Jayalalitha obviously taking a leaf out of the DMK-TMC representation in the UF government, is insisting that the same sensitive portfolios should go to her candidates from Tamil Nadu like Subramanian Swamy and Vazhapady Ramamurthy.
She wants Subramanian Swamy to head the finance ministry and Vazhapadi Ramamurthy to be put in charge of the law ministry.
During her first meeting with Atal Behari Vajpayee, Jayalalitha had suggested that the finance portfolio be bifurcated with a senior minister looking after the general budget, IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank etc and the junior minister heading banking, insurance, customs, revenue and excise departments. The AIADMK leader offered that she would be prepared to settle for the junior finance ministership (like Pranab Mukherjee's stint as the banking minister under C Subramaniam).
The Enforcement-directorate, incidentally, comes under the revenue department.
When the BJP leaders expressed their inability to divide the finance ministry, she increased the tally of her demands.
Her allies in Tamil Nadu, she conveyed to the BJP leaders, must be given both finance and industry, and the DMK ministry must be sacked. If the TMC could get finance with its 20 seats in the last Lok Sabha, then why not `my people', she is believed to have argued.
If the DMK with its 17 MPs could manage the industry ministry in the United Front government, there was no reason why it could not be given to her allies? After all, they were the largest group among BJP's allies accounting for 27 members.
"Are we to be treated like chaprasis?" asked an irate MP from Tamil Nadu belonging to the AIDMK led alliance.
Those close to her are pitching the problem as a North-South one, making it an issue of "Tamil pride".
If the BJP, they argued, could accommodate all the MLAS led by Naresh Aggarwal in the Kalyan Singh ministry in UP, why it is so stubborn over Tamil Nadu's demand for two ministries?
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
