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Will the Rajiv assassination verdict create another storm?

The Jain Commission interim report on former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination has been given a hasty burial. But will the assassination still haunt this year's election?

Though the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act court -- hearing the case at the high security Poonamallee prison in Madras for nearly five years -- is scheduled to pronounce its verdict next Wednesday, January 28, the chances are that it may not kick up a political storm in the run-up to the Lok Sabha poll.

Sonia Gandhi has already skirted the issue, particularly at Sriperumpudur, where her husband was assassinated on the eve of the 1991 poll, and from where she launched her election campaign for the Congress. And All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham chief and former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram has said she will not open the issue.

With other political parties, both at the national-level and in the state, feeling either harassed or embarrassed over the Jain Commission report, the assassination issue may not be the key issue for the election. This notwithstanding the fact that the election has been caused by the very same case -- the Congress withdrew support to the Inder Kumar Gujral government over the issue.

''We are not interested in opening up the issue,'' says a source in the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu, which was at the receiving end of the controversy caused by the report. ''True, there may be pointers to proving our 'innocence', in the TADA court verdict, but that will only open up political wounds. That will not do us good on election eve."

The chances are that the DMK may make passing references to the verdict, if it could be interpreted to proving the party's innocence. However, the party may not actually use it as a whip to beat anyone. ''If we tend to rely on the judgment, if it favours our line that the then DMK government did not help the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in anyway, others will start quoting again and again from the Jain Commission report. That will embarrass our allies more than us,'' said the source.

It is for the same reason that the DMK's ally, the Tamil Maanila Congress, too, may not focus on the Rajiv assassination case in any significant manner. The party's response may be confined to 'reactions'. Rather than positive comments.

With the alliance's post-poll future still in doubt, the TMC does not want to commit itself. Nor does it want to be reminded of the anti-DMK observations made by some of its leaders while in the Congress.

''There is no denying the embarrassment that will be caused to us, if we join a slanging match on the assassination issue on poll-eve, that, too, with the DMK as our ally. With Sonia Gandhi already coming out to campaign for the Congress, the sentimental value will be too great for us to compromise, either way,'' said a TMC source.

As the Congress may stand to gain if the assassination issue is re-opened on election eve, party insiders are cut up about Sonia not mentioning the report at her Sriperumupudur speech, or later. However, they concede that neither the Congress nor Sonia could have afforded to embarrass the TMC, given the future possibilities of the two parties working together.

''Anyway, Sonia's campaigning on the issue could have only cut into the TMC votes, without actually ensuring the victory of any Congress candidate in the state, where the party is down in the dumps,'' said a senior Congress leader. That would have only helped the BJP, through its AIADMK alliance.

But the irony is that even the AIADMK alliance is not willing to harp on the Rajiv assassination, for its own reasons. The BJP, for its part, has already dubbed the Jain report 'politically-motivated'. But that was before the fall of the Gujral government, where a forced exit of the DMK from the United Front could have helped the BJP in forming an alternative government, one way or the other.

''Even today, we are not sure of the post-poll equations with the DMK,' conceded a BJP source.

For their part, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Pattali Makkal Katchi -- partners in the AIADMK alliance -- fight shy of distancing themselves from any pan-Tamil cause, including the Sri Lankan issue and the LTTE, given their own cadres and mood.

The AIADMK feels this, as also the party's very own past links with the LTTE, would be dug up, if it tried to needle the DMK too much on the LTTE.

''Moreover, crucifying the DMK alone on the Jain report issue'has created an undercurrent of sympathy for that party in some sections in Tamil Nadu,'' said an AIADMK leader. ''While that party fights shy of converting that sympathy into votes, why should we add anything that will force the DMK to come out in the open, staking its claim on those pan-Tamil sections? After all, those sections are still sympathetic towards the MDMK and the PMK partners in our alliance.''

In this context, sources refer to the DMK playing down the acquittal of former minister Subbulakshmi Jagadheesan and erstwhile cadre V Ravichandran, brother of MDMK leader V Gopalswami, in the Padmanabha murder case some months ago.

The LTTE killing a rival Tamil militant and 15 others in cold blood at Madras has sent shock waves a year before the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, and the subsequent AIADMK regime of Jayalalitha charge-sheeted Subbulakshmi Jagadheesan and others.

''The leadership did not want to reopen the issue all over again, even while passively asserting that its innocence has been proved after all,'' said a DMK leader. For the same reason, it is said, Subbulakshmi has not been inducted into the Karunanidhi ministry.

For the DMK, the possible gain from the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case flows from legalese than politics. While the Jain report also went into the politico-administative configuration and lapses that made the assassination possible, the TADA court is hearing only what is permissible under the Evidence Act.

A conspiracy beyond the LTTE could thus be proved only if its supremo V Prabhakaran is brought to book, according to sources. Nor is the court overtly concerned about the political climate of the times, which is what the Jain Commission focused mostly on.

EARLIER REPORTS:
•The Jain Commission Controversy
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