Even after death Jayalalithaa keeps Tamil Nadu in thrall
Even when she was alive, J Jayalalithaa was an enigma. There were things she never spoke about. Like why exactly she kept her own family away while hosting that of a woman who first entered her life as an aide. In her death too, the late Tamil Nadu chief minister continues to befuddle.
Her mysterious 75-day hospitalisation at Apollo remains a bitter bone of contention in the merger talks between the two warring AIADMK factions. The rebel leader, O Panneerselvam, has been consistently demanding a probe into her death while chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami’s camp won’t hear of it.
“We are waiting for approval to release pictures of Amma in hospital. She was given the best treatment,” said an indignant V Pugazhendhi of the AIADMK Amma camp headed by Palaniswami. Sasikala and crew insist Jayalalithaa was against her sickbed pictures being released.
It’s unclear whether the photos would put an end to the conspiracy theories, particularly when a murder, two fatal accidents, and a possible “angry ghost” are thrown in.
On April 24, less than six months after Jayalalithaa’s death, armed men broke into her Kodanad tea estate, a 900-acre property in the Nilgiris that was also her summer office. A guard was beaten to death and another assaulted. The main accused C Kanagaraj was reportedly Jayalalithaa’s driver in Chennai from 2008 to 2013. On April 28, he died on the Salem-Ulundurpet highway when a car hit his twowheeler. The plot thickened when Sayan — a second suspect and Kanagaraj’s friend — was injured as a truck rammed his car across the border in Kerala the following morning. His wife and daughter were killed in the accident. Back in Kodanad, police maintained that only some watches and a crystal figurine were stolen. Few believe this.
A Coimbatore journalist, who wishes to remain anonymous, observed: “Both Kanagaraj and Sayan, despite being on the suspects’ list, were neither arrested nor interrogated. The police initially claimed the stolen watches were expensive but later showed pictures of cheap watches with Jayalalithaa’s image on them.”
At a press briefing, the police also denied the role of any external agency: “There are only 11 persons involved and we have already arrested six. One is dead and another is in hospital. The remaining will be arrested soon.”
CPI state secretary R Mutharasan believes this was no ordinary robbery. “They wanted to break into Jayalalithaa’s room.” He points out on April 19, five days before the intrusion, a fire had broken out in Jayalalithaa’s bungalow at Siruthavur.
Also adding to the intrigue are the strange happenings at Poes Garden. The 24,000-sq ft bungalow in Chennai, reportedly valued at ₹90 crore, was widely expected to be inherited by Sasikala but with no evidence yet of a will, its fate, like that of the Kodanad estate, remains unclear.
Those staying there claim hearing “strange wails”. “This has been happening every night and even Dinakaran’s family decided to leave,” said someone close to Sasikala’s family. An employee claims the wails were also heard when one of Sasikala’s relatives was closeted with someone in Amma’s room. “Problems have aggravated for those who tried to mess with Amma!”