Jaya denies pooling support for Shekhawat

Chennai, June 12: Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK General Secretary J Jayalalithaa today denied that she was working for a consensus among the Opposition parties, favouring Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat as an independent candidate in the forthcoming Presidential election.

''Some Press reports have also been published to the effect that I have spoken in this regard to the Chief Ministers of Bihar, Punjab and Orissa, and that I have also been in touch with Nationalist Congress Party leader and Union Minister Sharad Pawar. I catergorically deny all these reports. These stories are baseless and untrue,'' she said in a statement here.

Ms Jayalalithaa said the AIADMK was now part of a separate front which included many other parties and the leaders of the front met recently in Hyderabad, where no decision was taken with regard.

She said the Hyderabad conclave was only a preliminary meeting and that important decisions would be taken at the next meeting in the city on June 18, in which all the front leaders would participate. ''Nothing has happened to alter the status quo in the interim period,'' she added.

UNI