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Vengeance Mine

Jayalalitha has the legal hatchet out for Karunanidhi, Stalin and the DMK brass

By Arun Ram

When the election results in Tamil Nadu pointed to a landslide victory for the AIADMK, its general secretary, Jayalalitha Jayaram, got some advice from an associate, "Amma, you are going to be the chief minister again. When you take revenge on your rivals, keep your cool and make it slow and subtle." The selective listener that she is, Jayalalitha has kept her cool, at least in public, but her revenge has been anything but subtle.

Within a fortnight of Jayalalitha being sworn in as chief minister, the AIADMK revenge managers have ticked off at least half a dozen names on their hit-list. The most prominent is that of M.K. Stalin, former chief minister M. Karunanidhi's son and Jayalalitha's new bete noire. Others in the firing line include former deputy speaker of the Assembly Parithi Ilamvazhuthi, former DMK MP Parasuraman, former highways minister Kiruttinan and Devarajan, brother of former health minister Arcot N. Veerasamy.

T.G. Deivasigamani, a contractor, has filed a complaint alleging that he was forced to give Rs 7 crore as commission to Stalin-the mayor of Chennai-as well as Parasuraman and Kiruttinan for getting a radial road project cleared. This has become a handy instrument of revenge for Jayalalitha.

The complaint doesn't end with charges of corruption. It says Parasuraman, dissatisfied with his Rs 5 lakh share, kidnapped Deivasigamani and demanded another Rs 45 lakh. While Parasuraman has been arrested, all eyes are now on Stalin, whose arrest could trigger public violence.

Addressing the first session of the new Assembly on May 29, Jayalalitha gave enough hints that Stalin was not beyond handcuffs. "Whoever has done wrong will have to face the music," she said, her emotionless voice belying the seething rage at the DMK men who made her shuttle between special courts-she faces more than a dozen corruption cases-over the past four years. "There is no point in raising a hue and cry alleging political vendetta," she intoned in the same ominously calm manner.

While Karunanidhi stayed away from the Assembly, Stalin took on Jayalalitha. "I am ready to fight it out legally," he said, taking a dig at Jayalalitha's delaying tactics in courts, "I will promptly appear in the court and will not give lame reasons for absence."

And that's what Jayalalitha wants. Says an AIADMK lawyer: "It is not that Stalin will necessarily be convicted. Amma would be more than happy seeing Stalin do what she has been painfully doing in the previous years: appearing before the court and answering reporters' queries, more often than not embarrassing ones."

Making Stalin fight a legal battle will be a consolation for the AIADMK, which has accepted the "rising son" as the future challenge. Not that Karunanidhi, "the past challenge," has been spared. Jayalalitha is trying to get the CBI to reopen cases against him on the basis of the Justice R.S. Sarkaria Commission report of January 1977. The commission was set up by Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, after she dismissed the DMK government during the Emergency. It implicated the Karunanidhi regime in two scandals. In the first, the then chief minister was allegedly paid a kickback of Rs 20 lakh to award a contract to a firm that would spray insecticides on farms. The second pertained to irregularities in the bulk sale of flour to bakeries.

Though the CBI filed chargesheets in these cases, the Congress government at the Centre was voted out in March 1977 and the cases were withdrawn. On becoming chief minister later that year, M.G. Ramachandran, better known as "MGR"-Jayalalitha's mentor in the AIADMK-tried to revive them. He gave up, apparently when his bureaucrats told him the cases were weak. It is no wonder then that Karunanidhi pooh-poohs Jayalalitha's efforts to pressure the Centre to reopen the cases, which she says are not time bound. "Even MGR could not do it," is his refrain.

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