Chennai, Dec 30 (IANS) AIADMK general secretary and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Friday declared that the party will be in a position to decide the next prime ministerial candidate and called her party cadres to start working for the parliament elections.
She also warned them of severe action if ‘they are in touch with traitors’.
Speaking at the party’s general council meeting on the outskirts of the city, Jayalalithaa said: ‘Days are not far off when AIADMK would go beyond Tamil Nadu and achieve great things at the national political arena.’
She said it was the party’s golden period in 1998 when it extended support to the BJP enabling Atal Bihari Vajpayee to become the prime minister.
The BJP was able to capture power at the centre for the first time, she said.
Jayalalithaa declared the time is again ripening for the party to decide the prime ministerial candidate and ‘we will be there in the next government at the centre’.
She said at that point the party will be in a position to facilitate decisions that would not impinge on the rights of Tamil Nadu and the national unity, and urged the party cadres and leaders not to be complacent after the victories in the assembly and local body elections.
In an oblique reference to V.K. Sasikala and her relatives and associates who were recently dismissed from the party’s primary membership, Jayalalithaa said there are politicians who after being chucked out of the party threaten other members to behave as if they would be back again in the party.
Jayalalithaa declared that such people will never be pardoned and those party men who believe such people will also be not pardoned.
AIADMK’s general council and executive committee met for the first time Friday after the party stormed Fort St.George, the seat of power in Tamil Nadu, in May this year under Jayalalithaa’s leadership.
The meeting also comes close on the heels of Jayalalithaa summarily dismissing her long-time confidante Sasikala and her family members from the primary membership of the party Dec 19 without assigning any reason.
