AIADMK wants ties with BJP to extend to Karnataka

The final dish in the feast served by AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa to BJP leaders Narendra Modi and Ravi Shankar Prasad at her Poes Garden residence in Chennai recently was a demand that her party be adjusted in the BJP's calculations in Karnataka, which will soon go to polls.

Top sources in the BJP and the AIADMK confirmed Jayalalithaa's demand that her party be given at least four seats in Karnataka.

"There are at least 14 seats around Bangalore and Mysore which have a sizeable Tamil-speaking population and this strengthens the AIADMK's case," said a senior source in the AIADMK.

The BJP confirmed that the demand had been put forward and that the party was "positively considering it".

"We don't mind parting with a few seats for some return seats in Tamil Nadu, where we have a marginal presence," said a top source in the BJP. The BJP had, in the 2004 general elections, fought six seats in Tamil Nadu in alliance with the AIADMK, which contested 33 seats.

Neither won a single seat. In 1998, when the two parties formed an alliance, the BJP contested five Lok Sabha seats together. "We are trying to forge a 1998-type arrangement," said a source.

The BJP and Jayalalithaa share a chequered history together. In 1999, the 13-month-old NDA government fell as the AIADMK pulled the rug from under its feet.

Jayalalithaa had taken offence to the fact that the then petroleum minister, Vazhapadi Ramamurthy, was allegedly steering the BJP towards the DMK and the government refused to drop him. The BJP later tied up with the DMK.

In 2004, after falling out with the DMK, the BJP again turned to the AIADMK, but the tide was against both. From 2004-05 came the arrest of the Kanchi Shankaracharya, Jayendra Saraswati, in a murder case by the Jayalalithaa government.

This rubbed the Sangh Parivar the wrong way. Now, with the Shankaracharya out of jail, the BJP sees no impediment to a tie-up. Jayalalithaa's support to the BJP on the Ram Setu issue has also strengthened the case for an alliance. But nobody blames both parties for treading warily.