Prime Minister Narendra Modi comforted new Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and Sasikala Natarajan following Jayalalithaa’s death, but this gesture of the PM may have had more to it than meets the eye.
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said that when Modi spoke to Panneerselvam, it reflected the the Centre’s, indeed the BJP’s, attitude towards the AIADMK.
Naidu was quoted as saying that Jayalalithaa’s party was “ideologically near” to the BJP, a hint that the ruling party at the Centre intends to draw closer to the AIADMK.
The report said that the Centre’s obliging stance was evident from the fact that on Tuesday morning, as Jayalalithaa’s body lay in state at Rajaji Hall, the state government realised that there was no gun carriage for the funeral.
“I was there since early morning and found that the administration was in a quandary. There was a gun carriage in Coimbatore, but it would take six hours to reach Chennai, and another in Hyderabad which would take longer. Finally, I made a call to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar who got one flown down to Chennai on a special flight. It was 11.30 a.m. by the time that flight took off,” Naidu said.
While Naidu brushed off suggestions that the BJP was eyeing political inroads into Tamil Nadu due to the void left by Jayalalithaa’s death, he said that the BJP ‘have always had good relations’ with the AIADMK.
He added that when Modi comforted Panneerselvam, the PM also told the Chief Minister that he could rely on the Central government for any help.
The report said that Naidu revealed the BJP had attempted to forge an alliance with AIADMK ahead of the Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu earlier this year.
But while Jayalalithaa was sympathetic to the suggestion, she said that an alliance with the saffron party might come in the way of her getting the support of certain groups.
However, Naidu indicated that the AIADMK’s abstention from the vote on the GST Bill revealed the party’s inclination towards the BJP.
