I have nothing against Sonia: Jaya

Chennai: Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday made an apparent attempt to bury the hatchet against United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, saying that she "had nothing personal against" the Congress president.

"I have nothing personal against Congress President Sonia Gandhi. I had only opposed her becoming prime minister since she was a foreigner. I am not anyone's enemy. If someone conceives me to be their enemy it is not my fault. Sonia being the president of the Congress is an internal matter of that party," Jayalalithaa said on Thursday evening.

She was, however, evasive when asked whether she would oppose Sonia Gandhi again if she attempted to become the prime minister. "I have made my point very clear," Jayalalithaa said.

The Tamil Nadu opposition leader also launched a broadside against the legal system in the country citing the prolonged delay in carrying out the death penalty on three convicts in the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

"The Tamil Nadu police, the Central Bureau of Investigation which investigated the case, and the people of the country are being made to appear like fools by the convoluted system of endless mercy petitions to deny the verdict of the courts. Such a thing will happen only in India and in no other country," the AIADMK leader fumed.

Jayalalithaa was answering a barrage of questions concerning the collective hangings of the three convicts in the Rajiv case—Santhan, Murugan and Perarivalan—and the death penalty handed to Mohammad Afzal, sentenced to death in the 2001 attack on Parliament.

"All the death sentences must be carried out as quickly as possible because they are verdicts pronounced by the Supreme Court," Jayalalithaa averred.

Jayalalithaa indicated that she would campaign for the Samajwadi Party during the ensuing Uttar Pradesh elections.

Commenting on the Periyar statue controversy, Jayalalithaa said that erecting it in the vicinity of the Srirangam temple was akin to keeping cotton and fire close to each other. "Periyar's statues have been erected in many other places which have not evoked such controversy," she remarked.