Sasikala paid a visit to Jayalalithaa memorial at Chennai on way to jail
CHENNAI:Before surrendering herself, Sasikala paid a visit to Jayalalithaa memorial at Chennai’s Marina beach. Sasikala was found guilty of conspiring with six-time Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, with whom she lived, to acquire a nearly Rs. 60-crore fortune that did not match her disclosed sources of income.
Ordered by the Supreme Court to surrender “immediately”, VK Sasikala is driving from Chennai to Bengaluru, where she will be jailed. On the way, Ms Sasikala stopped at the memorial of J Jayalalithaa and made what her party the AIADMK called a “mighty vow.”
For years Ms Sasikala lived with Ms Jayalithaa, the powerful matriarch of the ruling AIADMK who died while she was Chief Minister in December.” Ms Sasikala had performed the last rites at Ms Jayalalithaa’s funeral on Chennai’s Marina Beach, where the politician was buried.
It was her impregnable proximity to Ms Jayalalithaa that led Ms Sasikala to easily assume the centre of power after the Chief Minister’s death. But her attempt to take the job that Ms Jayalalitaa held several times was stomped out by the Supreme Court yesterday, which found her guilty of corruption.
Ms Sasikala, 61, asked the top court today if, because of her health, she could be allowed some time to present herself in Bengaluru for imprisonment. “Do you know what immediately means?” the judges responded, highlighting that they had made their decision clear in yesterday’s verdict.
Ms Sasikala then left the house in Chennai’s Poes Garden that she cohabitated with Ms Jayalalithaa. The police is escorting her to Bengaluru.The verdict against Ms Sasikala sentences her to four years in prison and bars her from contesting an election for 10 years. She was found guilty of acquiring illicit wealth with Ms Jayalalithaa during the latter’s first term in office.
But she has taken a spree of decisions in the last 24 hours to ensure that she will call the shots from her party from within jail – a practice also exercised by Ms Jayalalithaa. Ms Sasikala has organised loyalist E Palaniswamy as the party’s presumptive Chief Minister. He has asked to take a trust vote in the legislature. She also today re-inducted a pair of nephews – TTV Dinakaran and S Venkatesh – into the party.
Mr Dinakaran, who was expelled from the party by Ms Jayalalithaa in 2011 for conspiring against her, has been appointed Deputy General Secretary of the AIADMK. Ms Sasikala retains the title of General Secretary, the party’s most powerful position.
At her sprawling Chennai residence VK Sasikala asked party workers to “cooperate” with her nephew. Justifying Mr Dinakaran’s return to the party only two months after Ms Jayalalithaa died, Ms Sasikala said he has “apologised in writing and in person.”
Ms Sasikala’s faction is pitted against the far smaller group of O Panneerselvam, who was made Chief Minister hours after Ms Jayalalithaa died, and has refused to give up his job for either Mr Sasikala or her proxy, E Palaniswamy. He has also put in a bid to prove his majority in the legislature.
Governor C Vidyasagar Rao, who has consulted legal and constitutional experts is expected to decide this evening who will be invited to take oath. Sources said he is inclined to go with Mr Palanisamy and ask him to prove in a trust vote that he has majority support.
Ms Sasikala will serve time in the same prison in Bengaluru where she was imprisoned with Ms Jayalalithaa in 2014 before the women were acquitted. The Supreme Court has reversed that verdict.
