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Dark horse may dash Jaya's dreams

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Is All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha keen on becoming prime minister in an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party alternative government at the Centre?

While she had been aware of the possibilities for long, she doesn't seem to be too keen on taking up the mantle at the moment, given the court cases she is involved in and the avoidable adverse publicity it would invite.

"She has been aware of the possibilities through the past decade, ever since Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy became a political ally, to oust the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham state government of the time," says an informed source. "Swamy had convinced her that it was possible to become prime minister with the backing of 40 MPs in the 1990s, and he has since been proved right, on more than one occasion."

But if the question is whether Jayalalitha would become the prime minister if the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government collapsed, "it's doubtful. She needed Congress approval, and that of the Left, to become the prime minister, though the Mulayam Singh Yadav-Laloo Prasad Yadav combine may be easier to convince. Everyone is aware of Jayalalitha's charisma, her bulldozer politics, and grants her, her political skills. That being the case, no one would like to risk a young prime minister who may be here to stay through her manipulative skills, if nothing else, once given a chance."

In this context, the source refers to the propping up of other names too, in the bargain. "Sonia Gandhi and the Congress, with their numbers and reach should have been the natural choice. Maybe, the Congress has reasons not to head a ragtag government with the 'destabiliser' tag attached to itself. But you also have the names of (West Bengal Chief Minister) Jyoti Basu and (Samajwadi Party chief) Mulayam Singh Yadav being mentioned in media rumours. The attempt obviously is for these names to cancel themselves out, for a dark horse, like former prime ministers H D Deve Gowda or Inder Kumar Gujral to emerge. And someone seems to be working at it."

Who could be the dark horse then? The sources do not rule out the name of Dr Swamy. "Right now, he seems to be having the confidence of all anti-BJP forces, including the Left. He is also considered a good manager, and had in the past helped Chandra Shekhar become prime minister, the same way. All told, he has been the one vigorously working for the downfall of the Vajpayee government since inception, whatever the reason."

The sources also claim that Dr Swamy had sought the AIADMK backing for such an endeavour even in the late 1980s, when he worked for the dismissal of the DMK state government, leading to the 1991 assembly election, alongside parliamentary polls.

"Possibly, Jayalalitha then had ideas of her own, that she left Swamy out of the Congress-AIADMK combine. Her actions in the first year as chief minister, including her influencing then state Congress president Vazhappadi K Ramamurthy, now a member of the Vajpayee Cabinet, to quit the minority P V Narasimha Rao ministry on the 'Cauvery issue', clearly showed her eagerness to prove a point, and ambitions for a national role."

Jayalalitha, the source says, might have wanted to become prime minister even in the early 1990s. "The AIADMK was obviously expecting the P V Narasimha Rao government too to collapse, and the feverishness with which some state ministers were making money in the first year of the government hinted at a big project. It's another matter that the Rao regime survived."

In this context, the source gives as much chance to Tamil Maanila Congress leader G K Moopanar becoming the 'genuine dark horse'. Says the source, "That's if the Congress decides not to stake its claims, and alongside the Left is against any role for the AIADMK in an alternative set-up." As he points out, "Both the Congress and the Left are yet ambiguous about the future set-up should the AIADMK help cause the fall of the Vajpayee government."

"Moopanar is not among the popular candidates in the run," concedes the source. "But he may be the best bet for the Congress and Sonia Gandhi, in particular, if they are looking for a loyal outside the party," says the source. "He can be expected to do the Congress bidding, and keep the gaddi warm for Sonia Gandhi to occupy at the hour of her choosing. It can also help Tamil Nadu with its decisive 39 MPs turn the Congress way for good, something even the BJP may prefer, in the long run."

For the present, however, the Congress ambiguity at distancing itself from any future arrangement has made decision-making difficult for the TMC and the AIADMK. "The Congress strategists seem to think that Vajpayee would submit his resignation if and when the AIADMK withdrew support to the government. But if he were to take it to the floor of the House, then the dividing line would have to be drawn, and the DMK and the TMC would want to know, which side of the AIADMK, will the Congress and the Left be. They haven't got any promise from either, on excluding the AIADMK from a future set-up, if it came to that, and they are thus caught between two stools."

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