Jayalalitha, Left hold talks on Third Front
CHENNAI, Jan 29 (Agencies): AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha met Communist Party of India general secretary AB Bardhan here Thursday to give shape to a third national front ahead of the parliamentary elections.
"There are indications of other parties joining our front.
We have left the decision concerning their admission to our front and their terms to her (Jayalalitha)," Bardhan told reporters here.
The CPI and the AIADMK share "strong common ground" on political issues - "an indication of a healthy relationship", Bardhan said.
Jayalalitha, former Tamil Nadu chief minister, echoed the sentiments.
"The political understanding between us (AIADMK) and the Left (the CPI and the Communist Party of India-Marxist) is very good and it is a strong alliance.
Alliances with other parties are under discussion," Jayalalitha said.
"The suffering of innocent Sri Lankan Tamils' will ease only after the banned LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) lay down arms.
The Sri Lankan government's sincerity in meaningful devolution of powers is also non-negotiable," Jayalalitha said, explaining her stand on the issue of Sri Lankan Tamils caught in the military conflict in the island nation.
The AIADMK-led front would be "equidistant" from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance.
Meanwhile, college student and sections of lawyers held hunger strikes and attempted to block road/rail traffic in different areas of the state to demand an end to the strife in Sri Lanka.
Chennai: Man sets himself ablaze to draw attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka CHENNAI, Jan 29 (Agencies): A computer operator working for a PMK-owned Tamil periodical on Thursday attempted self-immolation here, outside a building housing central government office, to draw attention to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka, police said.
Muthu Kumaran, 26, was admitted to a government hospital in a serious condition with 95 percent burns.
According to police sources, Kumaran, who works for a PMK-owned Tamil periodical, said: "the attempt was to open the eyes of the central and state governments to the burning issue of Lankan Tamils".
Hailing from Tuticorin in southern Tamil Nadu, some 500 km south of Chennai, Kumaran has been working in the state capital for the past six months, the sources added.
Hospital sources said the chances of his recovery were bleak.
Meanwhile, opposition legislators belonging to the Communist Party of India, MDMK and VCK staged a walkout of the Tamil Nadu assembly Thursday over the Sri Lankan Tamil tangle.
As a prelude to their protest, the parties termed the recently concluded visit of External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to Sri Lanka "unproductive".