While Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for the first time reacted to her allegation that `people close' to him accepted bribes from the owners of a newspaper group to transfer the Enforcement Director, his former political advisor Pramod Mahajan threatened to sue Jayalalitha for the statements pointing to him in the AIADMK's note released yesterday.

The Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee said all AIADMK ministers should be asked to quit the Union Cabinet and the Samata Party's Nitish Kumar said there was growing support for the expulsion of the AIADMK from the BJP-led coalition. Vajpayee said in Raipur today that Jayalalitha has not provided any proof of her charges and, ``If proof comes forth, the matter will be investigated.'' When asked how long the BJP-Jaya relationship is going to last, Vajpayee said:``Let's wait and watch.''

Mahajan too joined issue with Jayalalitha who yesterday hinted at his involvement in the transfer of Enforcement Director M K Bezbaruah. Challenging her to name him, Mahajan threatened Jayalalitha with ``legal action.''

``Enough is enough. I am the only person who has left the PMO recently, so her hint is obvious. Self-respect has no price. There is a limit to tolerance,'' a disturbed Mahajan said at a press conference where he released a letter to Jayalalitha.

Mamata went a step ahead. She said the removal of the AIADMK ministers will not pose any threat to the Central government, but ``increase its credibility.'' ``Being a part of the Government, how can the AIADMK be critical of it?'' she said.

The tone of the statements of the AIADMK's national allies today reflected the anger building up against the party. A section of the BJP is applying pressure on the leadership to sever ties with the AIADMK. But a powerful section is against jeopardising the Government. The issue isexpected to come up in the party's National Executive which begins tomorrow.

Mahajan's statement today can only weaken an already tenuous relationship but the BJP doesn't seem to be bothered at the moment. Mahajan said:
``Relations are strained. Everyone knows this.'' Describing his letter released today to Jayalalitha as a personal one, he said that he had consulted all those he considered necessary before sending it. He had first faxed the letter to Jayalalitha and put it on the Internet to be doubly sure that she got it, he said.

In yesterday's letter to the Prime Minister, the AIADMK had said there had been frequent interactions of ``a gentleman who was till recently part of the PMO'' with the impugned (newspaper) group's senior personnel. ``Such close interaction with those facing serious charges which are under investigation naturally leads to adverse inferences,'' the letter had stated.

Requesting her to ``stop beating about the bush'' and name him through a signed document so that he couldtake legal action, Mahajan told media persons that he had consulted his lawyers who had told him that her earlier letter was ``80 per cent adequate'' to file a defamation suit but that he wanted to have a watertight case. If she did not reply, however, then his purpose (of clearing his name) would be served since it would mean that she did not mean him, he said.

Stating categorically that he had not discussed any pending case or transfer of any official, including Bezbaruah's, with anybody, Mahajan wrote that the entire basis of Jayalalitha's allegation seemed to be an adverse inference drawn out of his so-called meeting with senior officials of a newspaper group.

``In the past four months, I have met the owners, proprietors and editors of all newspaper groups, individually and at social functions. In politics, you sometimes interact with people who have FERA allegations against them.

Meeting is no crime,'' he told media persons. ``Nobody from the Times of India has ever asked me for anything,'' headded. A spokesperson of Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd categorically had denied the allegations of Jayalalitha and said the company had nothing whatsoever to do with transfer of the Enforcement Director. Tacitly questioning Jayalalitha's own credentials when it came to complaining about corruption, Mahajan wrote : ``I am pained to observe that while your own corruption cases, for you, are nothing but just `political vendetta' of which you are an `innocent victim', you have yourself chosen to level such a serious allegation of corruption on another politician on such a flimsy ground. Worse still, you have indirectly harmed my reputation rather than directly levelling the charge.''