Bardhan meets Jaya, alliance on cards

The stage seems set for the AIADMK and the Left parties reviving their electoral alliance in Tamil Nadu for the coming LS elections with AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa meeting CPI leader AB Bardhan on Wednesday evening, reports MR Venkatesh.

The stage seems set for the AIADMK and the Left parties reviving their electoral alliance in Tamil Nadu for the coming Lok Sabha elections after a decade-long standoff. AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa met CPI leader AB Bardhan on Wednesday evening.

HT Image

Emerging out of a 45-minutes meeting with ‘Amma’ at her Poes Garden residence in the city, Bardhan said that their interaction was “very cordial and pleasant” and came as a good augury for an alliance.

Bardhan, accompanied by party national assistant secretary Sudhakar Reddy and state secretary D Pandiyan, acknowledged that the alliance issue also cropped up at their meeting.

The Bardhan-Jayalalithaa meeting, coming barely a week after BJP leader LK Advani met Tamil superstar Rajnikanth, was clearly a signal to the saffron party that the AIADMK leader has decided to go with the Left in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

“You can draw your own conclusions,” Bardhan said, declining to go into details of his talks with Amma. He added, “It is she (Jayalalithaa) who invited me; unless there is some indication, some willingness (for reviving the alliance with the Left), why would she invite me?”

Stating that the Left parties have decided to go together in the coming elections, Bardhan said they would formally make their positions clear after the CPI-M’s Politburo meeting in New Delhi on November 27-28.