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Jaya alerted Sonia on rebels

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Did All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha alert Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the impending rebellion over the 'foreigner issue'?

Yes, answer informed sources.

Jayalalitha reportedly got wind of the rebels' plan when Sharad Pawar met her in Madras early last week as the Congress emissary to discuss a possible alliance between the two parties. After weighing her options, "She may have alerted Sonia Gandhi," say the sources.

As he points out, Congress secretary Mani Shankar Aiyar, who was already in the city, had an unscheduled meeting with Jayalalitha only hours before last Saturday's Congress Working Committee meeting where Gandhi made her by-now-famous 'my mother-in-law and Rajivji' speech.

"Pawar's unusually long luncheon with Jayalalitha had caused eyebrows to raise," says the source. "To think that two seasoned political leaders discussed the 'political situation in Tamil Nadu' for nearly three hours, as Pawar told newsmen later, did not speak well of their political experience and expertise.

"So was Mani Shankar Aiyar claiming that his sudden talks with Jayalalitha had to do with the alliance? You do not downsize the status of your delegation from Pawar to Mani Shankar Aiyar, not certainly when you are talking to a mercurial leader like Jayalalitha," he adds.

According to this source, Aiyar was deputed to talk to Jayalalitha, only after Gandhi got wind of what all might have transpired during Pawar's meeting with the AIADMK chief. "Once Sonia Gandhi went on the offensive, and the rebels realised that their game was up, they hurriedly wrote the famous letter to Sonia Gandhi, which was promptly leaked to the media, by interested sections within the Congress."

What does Jayalalitha stand to gain by 'exposing' the Congress rebels to the party? As this source says, "The AIADMK realises that Sonia Gandhi's leadership of the Congress, and also the traditional party tag alone counts with sympathetic voters in the state. Sonia Gandhi is also the only Congress leader, whose suggestions for an alliance with the AIADMK, Tamil Maanila Congress founder G K Moopanar may consider seriously."

In his assessment, the AIADMK needs both the Congress and the TMC in its alliance, to make it a viable, if not formidable, opposition to the DMK-BJP combine.

"By possibly alerting Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalitha has ensured that the 'Congress rebellion' does not happen on the poll-eve, where its impact on a possible alliance would have been worse. More importantly she has made the Congress and Sonia Gandhi beholden to her. It will be now difficult for the Congress, with or without Sonia Gandhi at the helm, to ignore the AIADMK's hand of friendship. To a much lesser extent, it may be true of the TMC, as well, particularly if Sonia Gandhi withdraws her resignation."

Adds this source, as an after-thought: "With this, Jayalalitha, sitting in her Poes Garden fortress, has ensured that she can decide the fate of not just one national party, but also that of both. If she pulled down the BJP-led Vajpayee government at the Centre, necessitating fresh election, she has now played her hand even in the Congress politics."

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