BJP national committee member meets Jaya

In the first-ever contact by the Bharatiya Janata Party with the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu after it made overtures for a possible electoral tie-up for the coming Lok Sabha election, a senior BJP leader called on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa in Chennai on Saturday.

BJP's national executive committee member Sukumaran Nambiar met Jayalalithaa, who was maintaining a stoic silence on the poll alliance issue till Friday, at her residence.

Both Nambiar and party officials were tight-lipped on what transpired at the brief meeting. Whether he was deputed by the party high command or met Jayalalithaa on his own, was not immediately known.

Some top-level BJP leaders had been harping on a BJP-AIADMK tie-up for the poll, especially after the exit of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Marumalarchi DMK, and the Pattali Makkal Katchi, from the National Democratic Alliance. But Jayalalithaa had been maintaining a complete silence on the alliance issue.

Speaking to newsmen at the party headquarters after garlanding the statue of her party's mentor, M G Ramachandran, on his 87th birth anniversary, Jayalalithaa indicated that her party was not averse to a tie-up with another political party.

"Politics is all about changes and flexibility," she said without giving any concrete reply. "There is enough time to talk about alliance. I do not want to say anything now," she said, brushing off questions about a possible BJP-AIADMK alliance.

Jayalalithaa had indicated on Friday that the AIADMK could face the coming elections on its own.