Interestingly, the AIADMK chief's statement in Chennai came a day after Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi accused Jayalalitha of bowing to World Bank pressures and agreeing to withdraw free power to farmers in the state. In fact, just yesterday, the AIADMK legislative party leader R Tamaraikani had said that the state government should comply with the ordinance. At that time, it was the PMK leader I Ganesan who had opposed the ordinance and said his party would oppose it in Parliament.

The Centre had promulgated the ordinance last week for setting up central and state electricity regulatory commissions (CERC/SERC) within three months as part of its move toreform power tariff. Meanwhile, in a letter to Jayalalitha, Kumaramangalam deprecated the DMK government in for ``misinterpreting'' the provisions of the electricity regulatory commissions ordinance in order to ``cause confusion'' and asserted that it would not harm farmers' interests in any manner.

He clarified that whatever subsidy that had to be given to the farming community was a matter ''within the jurisdiction and as per the decision of the state government''.

He said the ordinance was a corollary to the decisions taken during the meeting of the chief ministers on power.

Kumaramangalam said at that meeting, the Law Minister of Tamil Nadu, Aladi Aruna had agreed to the state Electricity Regulatory Commissions being set up.

``I hope this clarifies the situation and I see your support for a bill which is necessary to help the capacity addition programme of both the state and the nation and to facilitate supply of quality power to the agriculturists,'' the minister added in his letter.

Reactingto the charges levelled by Karunanidhi, he said the ordinance was not against farmers nor was it meant to stop subsidies to them as the regulatory commissions provide for a three-year moratorium to bring agricultural tariff to half the cost of power.