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Jaya's Delhi visit keeps BJP on tenterhooks, Opposition guessing

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham chief J Jayalalitha could not have asked for more.

Her New Delhi visit started off as a 'cosmetic exercise' aimed at refurbishing her image muddied by the alleged attack on her former auditor K Rajasekaran last fortnight.

However, it will now become an occasion for unleashing another offensive on the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham government in Tamil Nadu.

In the process, she can also recapture the centre-stage of national politics all over again, keeping the Bharatiya Janata Party on tenterhooks, and the Opposition Congress guessing.

Her five-day visit has suddenly acquired greater proportions than expected, thanks to the BJP's defensive tactics.

Jayalalitha's anti-BJP ally Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy is organising a high tea in her honour on Monday, for her to mingle with anti-BJP politicians. And Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee too has joined the act with confidant-party MP Vijay Goel throwing a party, again in Jayalalitha's honour, for the coalition leaders -- a honour that the BJP does not extend to other coalition leaders visiting the national capital.

It's the 'Queen Bee' act that Jayalalitha revels in, and handles with elan and effect. Though in this case, much will also depend on the willingness of Congress president Sonia Gandhi to break cake with Jayalalitha, and literally so, at Dr Swamy's high tea.

It also remains to be seen, how many of the DMK's one-time national allies, like Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav, attend the function.

The latter in particular is indebted to the DMK for opposing the Rabri Devi government's dismissal, against the AIADMK voting in favour in the Lok Sabha.

Not stopping with the Goel-sponsored high tea, the BJP will hold an informal meeting of the ruling coalition's coordination committee on Saturday.

There is no specific agenda to the proposed meeting, which by itself is sought to be projected as a 'loud political statement' by the BJP.

The party has been unnerved, however, by reports of Sonia rescheduling her proposed Kerala visit for March 29, the last day of Jayalalitha's Delhi sojourn, without actually committing herself to attending Dr Swamy's reception.

The strategic advantage thus lies with Sonia, who can decide on her participation after the Goel tea and the coordination committee meeting.

Jayalalitha's purported cause for the Delhi visit is to accept an award being conferred -- for setting the precedent for 33 per cent reservations for women in party posts -- on her by a lesser-known 'political watch group'. She is scheduled to call on President K R Narayanan and Prime Minister Vajpayee.

Interestingly, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, who as BJP president had coordinated the poll alliance last year, is not in the list of invitees for the Goel tea, thanks to Jayalalitha's antagonistic postures in recent times.

Advani also cancelled his Tamil Nadu trip for the state BJP conference last week, which Vajpayee alone attended.

As coincidence would have it, Jayalalitha's Delhi visit, like her November visit to the capital, comes at the a time when the Supreme Court is seized of her plea against the appointment of special courts to try corruption charges against her chief ministership, by the Tamil Nadu government.

The court is now hearing the petition almost on a day-to-day-basis, and the hearing was adjourned on Wednesday, to commence on March 31.

BJP sources say they have nothing really to fear from Jayalalitha meeting either Sonia, or any other anti-BJP leader from the 'Hindi heartland'.

Says one of them, "There is no better 'political deal' that the Congress, or the other anti-BJP parties can offer the AIADMK right now. Jayalalitha's concerns revolve mainly around the 'special courts case', and there the Centre's views are closer to her line of defence than anything else. As for the AIADMK's persistent demand for the dismissal of the DMK state government, Jayalalitha is intelligent enough to understand our limitations in the Rajya Sabha without the Congress support."

AIADMK sources, however, claim the party can still afford to keep its options open. As they point out, the Congress seems a better bet now, electorally, in the state, than the BJP, after the AIADMK had all but snapped ties with the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazagham.

''Even the 'Rajya Sabha hurdle' for the dismissal of the DMK government, we may be able to cross in the company of the Congress and other anti-BJP parties and groups, if they offer us a deal. Anyway, a Congress-led government with the AIADMK participation would mean a majority in the Lok Sabha," says an AIADMK source.

Jayalalitha is expected to use her Delhi visit, particularly her meetings with the President, prime minister and other VIPs, to hit out at the DMK.

She is also likely to present a memorandum to the President, making out a case for the dismissal of the M Karunanidhi government, and use the occasion to speak against the 'trampling of law and order, in the light of the Tamaraikkani incident.

When planned, Jayalalitha's visit was seen as an attempt to refurbish her national image in the aftermath of the 'auditor incident'.

Indications are that Rajasekaran, who as Jayalalitha's personal auditor was also her power-of-attorney holder, had declined to be part of an ongoing exercise to project her Jaya Publications, in which friend Sasikala Natrajan is the other partner, as a trust of sorts for partymen to donate funds.

Jaya Publications was involved in the controversial purchase of the government-owned TANSI property when Jayalalitha was chief minister. The deal is the subject of a corruption case against her.

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