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Jaya denies holding Vajpayee government to ransom

All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham general secretary J Jayalalitha today described, as "false and mischievous" reports in a section of the media that she had issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to dismiss the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham government in Tamil Nadu within 15 days.

She also denied that Union Law Minister M Thambidurai had called on President K R Narayanan as her emissary to urge him not to dissolve the Lok Sabha even if Vajpayee recommended it.

In a statement, copies of which were released to the media in Madras, Jayalalitha also termed as false media reports that she was making "desperate overtures" to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and that the latter had not responded to them.

Jayalalitha said she had told the media at the airport in the city on November 28, before her departure to Hyderabad, that the AIADMK would not cause the fall of the BJP-led government at the Centre or be responsible for any mid-term elections to the Lok Sabha.

She said Thambidurai had also attended, on her behalf, the coordination committee meeting of the BJP-led front at New Delhi on November 30. "In the meeting, he confirmed, under my instructions, that we will remain as a coalition partner in the BJP-led government at the Centre," she added.

UNI

Assembly Election '98

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