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But the most ominous of them all is Amma's decision to revive cases against Karunanidhi on the basis of the Sarkaria Commission findings which indicted him and his cabinet colleagues on 14 counts of corruption charges during the emergency. Jayalalitha has been trying to get the Centre to direct the cbi to revive the cases. Even a petition to this effect was given to Vajpayee when the aiadmk was a part of the bjp-led government. But Vajpayee did not act on it.
But the party denies that all this is vendetta. On June 1, during her reply to the debate in the assembly on the motion of thanks to the governor's address, Jayalalitha said: "When the dmk came to power, they used every possible means to foist cases almost every day against me and my loyal aiadmk members. I was humiliated, tormented, sent to jail and in every possible manner prevented from performing my public service. But we have great faith in democratic norms. We won't act like the dmk did." State education minister S. Thambidurai voices similar sentiments: "There's no political vendetta involved. They are all plain law and order matters." But still, the aiadmk cadres are upbeat by the turn of events and are hoping for bigger things to come. Says one senior party leader: "We've suffered for five years. Puratchi Thalaivi was humiliated, sent to jail, even made to eat jail regulation food. We want to see the same things happen to Karunanidhi. Only that will satisfy us." Adding his bit is Chennai metropolitan police commissioner R. Muthukaruppan. Says he: "Where is the question of political motivation? These are not cases filed by political parties. We are only acting to put down acts of rowdyism with an iron hand."
But the dmk is convinced that it is nothing but vendetta. Laments Ilamvazhuthi: "The new regime is filing all these cases and making arrests only to destroy the Opposition. I won't be surprised if in the next few weeks you see more arrests." Thuglak editor and Rajya Sabha member Cho S. Ramaswamy, not too long ago a Karunanidhi supporter, is more circumspect: "I will not jump to such conclusions. It's only some cases that have come up now. Let's wait and see what happens further." In Tamil Nadu's deadly adversarial politics, after all, anything is possible.