Chennai: Reacting sharply to his statement that she would support the NDA if need be since Narendra Modi was her great friend, AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa expelled the former Rajya Sabha member K. Malaichamy from her party. The stern action may indicate that she has no plans to back Modi’s Prime Ministerial plans if his BJP-led NDA falls short of the magic number of 272 when the votes are counted on Friday.
Announcing the expulsion of the former IAS officer from “all positions including primary membership of the party”, Ms Jayalalithaa in a statement on Thursday accused him of violating party discipline and bringing disrepute to its image. “Party members should have nothing to do with him”, she said.
When DC tried to contact Malaichamy for his reaction, his wife said he was unavailable. “He told me that Amma was his leader and he would obey whatever she orders”, Mrs Malaichamy said.
Speaking to a TV channel on Wednesday, Malaichamy had said Modi was a great friend of Jayalalithaa and if he became the PM, she would support him so as to improve the state’s relations with the Centre.
That assertion was clearly out of tune with what his party leadership had in mind. In fact, when journalists asked her Wednesday evening about Third Front options, Jayalalithaa replied calmly and confidently that she would not like to make any comment until the results are declared on Friday. She had declared even before the start of her marathon campaign that the AIADMK would play a significant role in deciding on the future government. Her lieutenants went about saying she would certainly be the next PM.
The AIADMK chief had almost single-handedly conducted her party’s poll campaign after deciding to contest all the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in Puducherry. That bold decision to go it alone after ejecting the Communists from her camp clearly stemmed from supreme confidence that the Prime Ministerial dream was achievable. Throughout the backbreaking electioneering, she sported buoyancy and that enthusiasm percolated right down to the last cadre perhaps the first time such a phenomenon was achieved by a Tamil Nadu leader fighting the national elections.
