JOIN USVirtually inviting Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha to rejoin the NDA, senior BJP leader L K Advani breathed fresh life into the theory of the AIADMK and BJP being “natural allies”, even as he hinted a larger national role for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Though the AIADMK was not formally part of the NDA post-2004 Lok Sabha polls, Advani, told a large gathering in Chennai on Saturday night that in Parliament now, the “AIADMK has been functioning as natural allies of my party (BJP) and there are so many things common to us.”
Stopping short of calling for renewing the BJP-AIADMK’s political alliance, Advani, speaking at the 42nd anniversary of the Tamil political magazine ‘Thuglak’, edited by Cho S Ramaswamy, expressed his “deep gratitude” to the Jayalalitha Government which quickly averted a major bomb disaster during his Rath Yatra near Madurai last October.
“When I rang her up to thank her, she said that it was providence that saved you; I was touched even more when she added that I (Jayalalitha) would not have been able to forgive myself if something had happened to you,”Advani recalled his telephonic conversation with Amma. In fact, he stunned the audience saying what was recovered from under a culvert along his ‘yatra’ route that day was a “bomb with seven kg of RDX”.
On most major issues rocking the country in recent times, Advani said that AIADMK’s “cooperation with and assistance to” the BJP has been unreservedly total. The former deputy prime minister was particularly impressed by Jayalalitha’s speech at the recent National Development Council meeting, when she emphasised how the Congress-led UPA Government was completely undermining the federal principle by “reducing state governments to the status of glorified municipal corporations.”
Advani emphasized for good governance and corruption at the Centre.