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Vajpayee shuts the door on Jaya

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee today said he saw no possibility of a rapprochement with the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which has pulled out its two ministers from the Union council of Ministers, plunging the government into a crisis.

Vajpayee said his coalition government would tide over the crisis, but declined to speculate on the turn of events if the AIADMK decides to withdraw its support to the government.

"It is difficult to say anything," he said.

Asked how his government would prove its majority on the floor of the House, Vajpayee said, "Please wait."

He also dismissed the possibility of a change of leadership in Uttar Pradesh where Chief Minister Kalyan Singh is under attack from dissidents.

The prime minister was talking to reporters at Delhi airport on his return from a day's visit to his birthplace Bateshwar, near Agra. Singh accompanied him at all his engagements in the state.

Earlier, addressing a public meeting at Nangla Chanderbhan, the birthplace of the late Jan Sangh leader Deendayal Upadhyay, the prime minister praised the performance of the Kalyan Singh government.

More than 30 Bharatiya Janata Party legislators from Uttar Pradesh had yesterday met Vajpayee, Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani, and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi demanding that Singh be removed for his "autocratic style of functioning".

Meanwhile, the two AIADMK ministers -- M Thambi Durai and K M R Janarthanam -- personally handed over their resignation letters to the prime minister at a 15-minute unscheduled meeting after his return.

In Madras, Jayalalitha took her fight further into the BJP camp, accusing Advani of actively blocking a joint parliamentary committee inquiry into the Vishnu Bhagwat-George Fernandes row.

In a strongly worded statement, she asked why Advani and Defence Minister Fernandes were particular that a full inquiry on such a sensitive matter involving national security should be avoided.

This, she said, was similar to their "failure" to take follow-up action on information passed on by her about infiltration by Osama bin Laden's terrorists into the southern states, conversion of certain coastal districts of Tamil Nadu into terrorist sanctuaries by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and interception of suspected terrorist vesselss in Indian waters.

UNI

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