``I wouldn't call it just irresponsible behaviour. I believe there is a method in that exercise that you do anything and everything that is possible to prevent a government from settling down to governance,'' he said in an interview to `Home TV.'

He said ``I don't know whether she realises that what she is doing is leading to. Perhaps her thinking would be that I have a grievance and that grievance must be resolved and that is the priority. (I don't know) whether you should call it selfishness or not being able to realise the significance of what is happening.''

Admitting that Vajpayee government's image has suffered a ``dent,'' Fernandes, who has met Jayalalitha a few times in a bid to resolve differences on behalf of the ruling coalition, said, ``what she is doing just now is indeed creating a problem but I don't think it is Chennai alone...The government could not be rattled or made to look as being in difficulties only because of one person.''

Asked if AIADMK should be dropped from the government, Fernandes said it was a matter which should be discussed either in the coordination committee of the coalition or the cabinet or at a certain level with the prime minister, according to a TV channel press release. Fernandes refused to say that he was disagreeing with Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee's view that AIADMK should be dropped from the government.

On Jayalalitha's failure to provide evidence so far that two senior but unnamed persons having links with the prime minister's office (PMO) had taken bribes for transfer of enforcement director MK Bezboruah, Fernandes said ``the prime minister has to think about it and act.''

Asked if he regretted his statement in January this year that he would like to keep out of a government if either Jayalalitha or her AIADMK MPs joined it, he said AIADMK was included in the government because the prime minister had no alternative. ``I think at that point of time as far as the prime minister was concerned and as far as this ruling coalition was concerned there was no other alternative. ``I did express and I continue to have a feeling that if things could have taken a different turn it may have been better,'' he said. Asserting that he was against being part of the government, Fernandes, president of the Samata Party, said ``I joined the government under great pressure both from my party and the prime minister. Having joined the government, it was my duty to see that my government functioned.''

He charged the opposition with preventing functioning of parliament during the Budget session saying ``parliament could hardly do any legislative business.''