RSS frowns upon BJP's growing ties with AIADMK

The BJP may be casting about for new allies but its efforts to befriend the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), led by J Jayalalithaa, in Tamil Nadu are eliciting frowns from the RSS.

Top sources in the RSS have made it clear that there are "sentimental" reasons for opposing a partnership between Jayalalithaa and the BJP.

"We have our sentimental reasons for opposing Jayalalithaa. Why is the BJP in such a hurry, why can't it wait?" said a senior RSS source.

The sentimental reason is the alleged persecution of Kanchi Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati in a murder case in 2004-05 by the then AIADMK government under Jayalalithaa.

At that time, the BJP, the RSS and the VHP had taken to the streets, with senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj even meeting the Kanchi seer in a Chennai jail.

The RSS brass will meet in Vrindavan next month for a routine 'pratinidhi sabha' (representatives' meeting) where this matter will be put before senior BJP leaders. "We expect BJP President Rajnath Singh to be there but it is not sure if LK Advani will attend," said the source.

The BJP's growing proximity to Jayalalithaa in recent times, culminating in a lunch organised in honour of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in Chennai after his re-election, has been a pragmatic move.

"In Tamil Nadu, you either ally with the DMK or the AIADMK, and according to the law of shifting government in Tamil Nadu, it is the AIADMK's turn to come to power. We need them in the state and they need us at the Centre," said a senior BJP leader.

The BJP's experience with the AIADMK has not been a happy one, with the 1998-99 BJP government falling due to the latter's withdrawal of support over the then minister of state for petroleum Vazhapadi Ramamurthy's overtures to the DMK and the NDA government's refusal to sack him.

The AIADMK had severed ties with the BJP after the 2004 poll debacle in which the DMK-Congress alliance won the Lok Sabha polls in the state.