Tamil Nadu Waits for Sasikala to Return as AIADMK Gets Jitters Over Leadership Contest
VK Sasikala, who was the aide of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha, will return on February 8 to the state after serving her jail term. While it is expected that she will be welcomed with a grand party, the move has rattled many in the ruling AIADMK, with the tussle over the party’s leadership expected to raise its head once again.
Top ministers of the AIADMK government met the state police chief on Thursday evening to protest against the use of the AIADMK flag on Sasikala’s car when she discharged from a Bengaluru hospital last week. They also lodged a complaint on the issue.
Sasikala, who has been serving time in the Bengaluru Central Jail for the last four years, was discharged on January 27. But being infected with the coronavirus, she was recuperating at a Bengaluru hospital, and later moved to a resort in the city to rest and recover her health.
She moved from the hospital to the resort in a car that sported the AIADMK flag, at a time when the party has completely distanced itself from her saying that she is “not even a member of the it”.
However, her nephew TTV Dinakaran, who is the founder of AMMK and an MLA from Jayalalitha’s erstwhile constituency RK Nagar insists that she continues to be the AIADMK general secretary and this issue is now being fought legally.
“The way in which others have installed themselves to various posts of the party is illegal, and goes against the party’s own by-laws. Let the courts decide on this,” he told reporters in Madurai on Wednesday.
Dinakaran also said that supporters of Sasikala will be standing along the route from the Bengaluru-Tamil Nadu border all the way to Chennai as she makes her return.
She also plans to visit the Jayalalithaa memorial whenever it opens again, he said, adding that the fact that the memorial was “closed for maintenance” just as her return plans were made was laughable.
While the AIADMK did not respond to this jibe, it is clear that the party is worried about its own functionaries who may be more loyal to Sasikala rather that the current brass of chief minister E Palanisami and deputy CM O Panneerselvam.
Late Wednesday night, it expelled its Karnataka unit convenor MP Yuvaraj for ‘anti-part activities’ after it emerged that he had met Sasikala on February 1 at the resort where she is staying.
The ADMK is also acting against party functionaries who are putting up posters in various districts welcoming her — but, as Dinakaran predicted, there are ‘sleeper cells’ loyal to Sasikala active at even village levels. Posters that portrayed her as ‘Raja Matha’ were put up in Kodaikanal by some panchayat functionaries. These posters sported pictures of the CM and Deputy CM, but also referred to her as the permanent general secretary of the AIADMK — a hotly contested claim.
Nearer to February 8, the party top brass is likely to face more embarrassment as there are reports of posters being put up from different districts on a daily basis.
Meanwhile, Dinakaran, while saying that Sasikala would be welcomed back into Tamil Nadu will festive fervor, asked party workers to adhere to Covid protocols in all activities.
