J Jayalalithaa, the AIADMK leader, on Sunday blasted the BJP for its allegations that she remained inaccessible to the Union Ministers for discussing the development issues of Tamil Nadu. An article in Sunday’s Namathu MGR, the AIADMK mouthpiece, which could not have been published without the approval of Jayalalithaa, said the BJP was upset and frustrated because of its failure to cobble up an alliance in poll-bound Tamil Nadu. Though all major political parties have forged alliances and fronts, BJP is the only party in Tamil Nadu which remains without any friends or allies.
But the article in Namathu MGR has ridiculed the new-found aggressiveness of the BJP which it says was in stark contrast to the stance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The Prime Minister while launching the BJP’s election campaign at Coimbatore on February 2 did not make any critical comments either about Jayalalithaa or the AIADMK”, said the article.
The war of words between the BJP and Jayalalithaa began recently with Union Minister for power Piyush Goyal’s statement in New Delhi that he could not meet Chief Minister Jayalalithaa even once for discussing about the Ujjwal Disscom Assurance Yojana, a flagship programme of the Centre to help the power distribution companies in the country which were in the red.
While Jayalalithaa deputed two of her Cabinet colleagues to rebut the charges of Goyal, other BJP leaders and Union Ministers took off from where Goyal left. Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for environment and forests who is also in charge of BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, alleged that the AIADMK Government was not interested in helping the poor and the common man. He also charged that the Tamil Nadu Government was foisting sedition charges on those demanding total prohibition in the State. Pon Radhakrishnan, the lone BJP Minister from Tamil Nadu in the Union Cabinet too chipped in with his criticism against Jayalalithaa, a leader whom he fear most. Radhakrishnan’s charge was about the deployment of money and muscle power by the AIADMK.
“Radhakrishnan and Venkiah Naidu had lauded the AIADMK Government till yesterday for redeeming Tamil Nadu from power crisis created by the previous DMK Government. Their change in stance is nothing but a sign of frustration. Nobody in Tamil Nadu has bothered to respond to BJP’s invitation,” ridiculed the article.