“We believe in action” was AlADMK supremo Ms Jayalalitha’s assertion when addressing the cadres at the party birthday celebrations yesterday. And that made all the difference we should add. For had it not been for her speedy and thoughtful efforts in restraining the release of Mr. Seshan’s biography through a High Court stay, a document of utter falsehood and blasphemy would have been on parade today.
The court order, staying for six weeks the publication, release and sale of the book has forced the publishers to postpone the same. While the author and his ‘subject’ have claimed that there was only a suggestion and not an insinuation that Anna ‘might have been in the grip of CIA’, it fails to carry conviction. Undoubtedly the book is a blatant outrage on the character and integrity of one of the most revered leaders of the Dravidian movement. And to cast aspersions on the late leader’s motives in spearheading the anti-Hindi agitation is, to say the least, preposterous. The CEC’s penchant for unbridled utterances has of late reached alarming levels and one definitely feels the need to put a ceiling on the ‘assumed’ powers of this self-appointed reformist of Indian politics.
In the Tamilnadu Chief Minister, Mr Seshan seems to have met more than his match. On an earlier occasion when Mr Seshan sought an appointment with the CM to solicit support of her party MPs against the Electoral Reforms Bill, conveniently forgetting his witchhunting of her, Ms Jayalalitha refused to see him. She knew only too well about the latter’s potential to present a distorted picture of any such meeting. And in the present episode he has been once again cornered and felled by the speed and force of the Chief Minister’s action. It should not take much time for the discerning CEC to comprehend that, unless the anti-Anna statements are withdrawn, his biography may perhaps not see the light of day!
Opposition’s predicament
The DMK and MDMK have been left high and dry. The thunderbolt action of the CM has left them more shocked than even Mr. Seshan and his ‘Boswell.’ The inflammatory remarks in the biography gave them just another opportunity to espouse their claim to Anna’s legacy. They confined themselves to plain rhetoric, black flags and black badges and there was absolutely nothing by way of concrete steps to stop the release of the book.
The Opposition’s only concern was to register their protest for the purpose of record and publicity. They were busy planning agitations and book burning exercises, after the book had been released; after the damage had been done.
Ms Jayalalitha, on the contrary. was under no illusions. She knew that the remarks on Anna were deliberate and were meant to hurt and the perpetrators of this character assassination were not going to relent. This was borne out amply by the fact that Mr Seshan’s reaction to the outcry against his comments was only to ask for more security during his Tamilnadu visits. There was no point in holding out meek protests; the book release had to be stopped. And she set about doing this by acting first, acting fast and acting decisively.
Belated action
The DMK has also secured a stay of the release of the biography, though belatedly. It is common knowledge that the party had no such idea until Ms Jayalalitha seized the initiative from right under their noses. Till then, their imagination was confined to plain slogan shouting.
The MDMK, too, had to cut a very sorry picture. Its leader Mr. Gopalsamy rushed to Delhi to be present at the scene of action and hog publicity by picketing the venue only to find to his dismay that the astute TN Chief Minister had already brought the curtains down from Madras itself; like the mythological Ganesha who attained the divine fruit from his parents by mere application of the grey cells!.
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