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Jaya asks AIADMK ministers to quit Union Cabinet

The All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam tonight announced the withdrawal of its two ministers from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition government at the Centre in what appears to be a prelude to the withdrawal of support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

Announcing the resignation of Union Law Minister M Thambidurai and Minister of State for Finance Kadambur M R Janardhanam with immediate effect, general secretary J Jayalalitha said in a statement after a three-hour meeting with senior party politicians and members of Parliament at her Poes Garden residence that she would camp in Delhi from April 12 for talks with other parties on the formation of an alternative government.

Today's announcement follows the Union Cabinet's outright rejection of the AIADMK's three demands, including removal of Defence Minister George Fernandes, earlier in the day.

Jayalalitha said she would take a decision on withdrawal of support after her talks with other parties.

The party's general council had authorised her to take a decision on the support to the government.

Jayalalitha took exception to the Union Cabinet's "single-point agenda" of slighting an ally, which, she said, was responsible for providing the government a majority in the Lok Sabha.

She said she was pained that the meeting of the Union Council of Ministers was hurriedly convened this morning when the AIADMK ministers were away from the capital and could not attend it.

She also termed as unprecedented the outright rejection of her party's demands relating to Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat's dismissal. The Cabinet gave no reason for this extraordinary act of discourtesy to an ally, she added.

She asserted that the AIADMK would not fail the people who were seeking a government that delivers rather than promises and which does not discriminate on grounds of religion, caste or region.

In her statement, Jayalalitha said the two ministers would submit their resignations to the prime minister tomorrow.

She said it was not the AIADMK's intention to destabilise the Vajpayee government and cause fresh elections. "But this should not be taken to mean that we will keep silent when national interest in general or the interests of Tamil Nadu in particular get affected."

UNI

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