DMK ministers quit Vajpayee govt

A day after the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) snapped ties with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), its two ministers""TR Baalu and A Raja"" on Sunday handed over their resignations to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The party will from now extend issue-based support to the NDA from outside, like the Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

Baalu (environment minister) and Raja (minister of state for health), who drove to the Prime Minister's residence, told him that the party's decision was prompted by differences with the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Tamil Nadu unit.

Baalu said when he asked Vajpayee whether there was any message to be conveyed to DMK chief M Karunanidhi, the Prime Minister, apparently jokingly, said, "I am not going to accept the resignations."

The parting of ways has come following mutual contradictions at the state level.

Although the BJP and the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana; the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Orissa; and the BJP and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal also do not have a particularly harmonious relationship, in Tamil Nadu, the fight between the state BJP and the DMK was particularly intense.

Mutual mudslinging has been on for the last several months with AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa willingly stoking the embers by various pro-Hindu moves including being the first leader to introduce a ban on religious conversion.

Despite a deep and long personal friendship between Karunanidhi and Vajpayee (Tamil Nadu was the only state that was ruled by an Opposition DMK government during the Emergency and several leaders of the resistance had sought sanctuary there to avoid arrest) the ground level contradictions between the DMK and the BJP's base, led to this decision.

It is possible that the current relationship between the DMK and the NDA will last only so long as Karunanidhi is running the party - for others in the party see no rationale in aligning with the BJP-led NDA and jeopardising the party's minorities base.

But till then, it is unlikely that there will be any further change in the alliance.