The Hindu : We are not dithering on LTTE issue: CM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 13, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

We are not dithering on LTTE issue: CM

By K.V. Prasad

ERODE Feb.12. The Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today rejected the charges levelled by the DMK president, M. Karunanidhi, that she lent support to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and that she wrote to Rajiv Gandhi, when he was Prime Minister, saying the late Chief Minister, M.G. Ramachandran, had resented her popularity.

Choosing the launch of Rs.424.65-crore development projects here to reply to two persistent questions from Mr. Karunanidhi, Ms. Jayalalithaa said she and her party had staunchly opposed the LTTE and sought a ban on the outfit soon after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

To Mr. Karunanidhi's question whether or not she supported the LTTE even after the killing of the EPRLF leader, Padmanabha, in Chennai, she admitted to having voiced support for the LTTE, as she only went along with the popular, widespread opinion among all parties in the country that it was the only organisation which championed the cause of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

"But we should see the entire issue of support to the LTTE in two phases, the pre-Rajiv assassination era and the post-assassination era. Before the killing, all parties lent unstinted support to the LTTE, even the Indira Gandhi Government at the Centre and the MGR Government in the State. After the assassination, the AIADMK, along with other parties, condemned the organisation and we (AIADMK and its Government formed in 1991) sought its ban".

As for support to the LTTE even after Padmanabha killing, Ms. Jayalalithaa said: ``I had just risen to the rank of general secretary and had to agree with the popular opinion among the senior leaders of the party that the LTTE had to be supported for its fight for the cause of the Tamils in the island nation".

At present, the AIADMK and its Government opposed the banned organisation and were not dithering on this issue, unlike some others who kept shifting their stands.

On the letter she was alleged to have written against MGR, the Chief Minister charged that Mr. Karunanidhi fabricated the issue and that he forged such a letter and released it to the media. The DMK chief also manipulated a photograph to show her with Rajiv Gandhi assassins — Sivarasan and Dhanu. "He tried to implicate me in the case and now he speaks of a letter I did not write", she said.

"Now that I have replied to his questions, will Mr. Karunanidhi reply to mine, why he is not attending the Assembly"? The DMK chief was sulking instead of being sincere to his voters. "Is it not the responsibility of an elected member to participate in the Assembly proceedings after being voted by the people?"

(Last Saturday, speaking at a similar function at Kancheepuram, the Chief Minister wanted to know why the DMK chief was not attending the House and why his son, M.K. Stalin, was not participating in the deliberations. Mr. Karunanidhi, on his part, reminded her that he was waiting for her answers to the two questions he had raised three or four years ago.)

Later, she distributed welfare assistance to the tune of Rs.13.39 crores to 21,904 beneficiaries. The Speaker, K. Kalimuthu, presided.

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