Number Crunching
Jayalalitha has been using her sharp tongue to rail at the centre over the last year and she got one more opportunity this week. After her meeting with Planning Commission chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, she commented: “What this entire exercise amounts to is that we have come all the way to Delhi to have discussions and meetings with the Planning Commission so they can tell us how to spend our own money.” Ahluwalia defended himself saying the discussions were important because the centre also contributed to state outlays. She rounded on him furiously pointing out that the centre’s contribution of Rs 3,000 crores in a total outlay of Rs 28,000 crores was not something to brag about. “It’s TN’s own money,” she told reporters in Delhi.
For the record, TN got 19 per cent more than the last fiscal. In 2011-12, Jayalalithaa had got Rs 23,535 crore, marking an increase of 17.28 per cent over the previous financial year. In contrast, according to the figures furnished recently by her finance minister, O P Paneerselvam, in the assembly, the expenditure always exceeded approved outlay during DMK rule. The approved outlay in 2007-08, was Rs14,000 crore, while the expenditure was Rs 14,224 crore. The following year, again expenditure exceeded the approved outlay of Rs16,000 crore by Rs 275 crore. Similarly, in 2009-10 too, expenditure was Rs 334 crore higher than the approved outlay. In the DMK’s last year in office (2010-11) it was Rs 397 crore more than the approved outlay.
Jayalalitha’s point to the Planning Commission was that, in contrast, her government’s prudent fiscal management strategies had not only reversed the dismal outlook , but she had returned the state to a revenue surplus in 2011-12 and the fiscal deficit as a percentage of GSDP had been contained at 2.85 per cent. The latest estimates of the Central Statistical Organization (CSO) placed the economic growth rate of TN for 2011-12 at 9.39 per cent, much above the national average of 6.50 per cent, she said in her speech.
While her predecessor Karunanidhi is usually credited with fighting with the centre to preserve the state’s independence, it’s Jayalalitha who has brought federalism to a whole new level in her year-long battle with the centre. One of her earlier barbs was that the centre was treating states as “glorified municipalities”. It must be said that with the DMK being part of UPA since 2004, Karunanidhi has found his hands tied except for lip service now and then.
Between the Cup and the Lip
However, her first attempt has come a cropper. Her strong endorsement of former Speaker P. A. Sangma as a potential first tribal President has floundered despite the active support she got from her Odisha counterpart, Naveen Patnaik. But she is still braving it out. In Delhi when she was asked whether her lobbying for Sangma had borne fruit, she said, “I have made a request to the leaders whom I know well. I prefer to wait and watch the developments.” Now that another woman party chief (Sonia Gandhi) has been authorized to choose in a scenario where she still commands the numbers, amma’s choice is unlikely to go through. There are other hurdles too for her to cross while coveting a national role, the biggest of which is the judgement on the disproportionate assets case being heard by a Bengaluru court. There’s a real chance that Jayalalitha might be history and O. P. Paneerselvam might have to come to the rescrue again!