New Delhi: In the midst of talk of fresh realignment in Tamil Nadu, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, once Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's interlocutor with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) supremo J Jayalalithaa, called on her at Tamil Nadu house on June 11, raising political eyebrows.

Jayalalithaa said she had raised the issue of need for increasing the financial allocation for drought relief and supply of rice to the state, but sources attach much importance to the meeting with the Finance Minister making a visit to Tamil Nadu.

The meeting assumes significance in the context of an uneasy relationship between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and DMK and an apparent warming up of ties between BJP and AIADMK.

Significantly, she also stuck to her anti-Congress and anti-Sonia stand.

Singh often acted as the troubleshooter for Vajpayee with Jayalalithaa, shuttling between Delhi and Chennai, during the tenure of his first government between 1998 and 1999, which hopped from crisis to crisis before she finally pulled the government down.

The Chief Minister, however, brushed aside questions at a press conference whether her party was getting close to National democratic Alliance (NDA). "It is your perception," she shot back describing her meeting with Singh as a "business meeting".

PTI