The impact of the Tamil Nadu Assembly election results will not be restricted to the State but extend to national politics, said BJP leader and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.
Talking to journalists at a hotel in the city, he said the one positive thing emerging out of these elections was the shaping of bipolar politics in the country. “While there is a camp of politicians solely interested in vote bank politics, there is also one that has development as its prime agenda, and committed to it. This programme will strengthen that kind of developmental politics,” he said. Politically, Mr. Modi believed that Ms. Jayalalithaa's win would have an impact on the national political scenario.
On the Karnataka Governor asking for President's rule in the BJP-ruled State, he said the Congress always misused the Governor's post and the Raj Bhavan for its own purposes. “They have gone against the Indian Constitution, and disrespected the will of democracy.”
Asked for his message to Ms. Jayalalithaa, he said she had been in politics longer than him, and so he had no right to do so. “I have the confidence that she will take Tamil Nadu miles ahead and enable the State to contribute much to the progress of the country.”
On his “good friend” Ms. Jayalalithaa's victory, Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu said the people of Tamil Nadu had voted against corruption and family rule and the same thing must happen in the country.
Asked for his reaction on participating in a function along with Mr. Modi, CPI leader A.B. Bardhan said: “Both are in the same field. Ideologies will differ. Political programmes will differ. As human beings, it was courtesy.”
