Woman says she is Jaya’s daughter, wants DNA test
NEWDELHI: A 37-year-old Bengaluru woman has petitioned the Supreme Court, claiming herself to be the daughter of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and has demanded a DNA test to prove it.
In her petition filed on November 22, Amrutha, who claims she was adopted and raised by Jayalalithaa’s sister and her now deceased husband, says she learnt the “truth” about her birth after the leader’s death on December 5 last year.
Jayalalithaa died in Chennai after a prolonged illness. The 68-year-old never married and led a fiercely private life.
She was a successful actor before she joined politics and left behind sizable assets in the form of land, houses and jewellery. In her affidavit for the 2016 assembly poll, she declared assets worth ₹113 crore.
When reached for comments, AIADMK spokesperson Satyan
Rajan said Sunday, “We do not even have a clue to what you are saying and asking.” The SC could take a call on the plea Monday. Amrutha claims she was born on August 14, 1980, at Jayalalithaa’s residence in Mylapur but the birth was kept secret to avoid social stigma and “uphold the dignity of the family as they belonged to a very religious, orthodox and cultured Brahmin family”. Her two aunts, LS Lalitha and Ranjani Ravindranath, are co-peti- tioners. The two, who are Jayalalithaa’s cousins, have sought the court’s intervention to help Amrutha prove her relationship with Jayalalithaa, which they say was thwarted by AIADMK leader Sasikala.
Sasikala, a close aide of Jayalalithaa for 30 years, was all set to take over as the chief minister when a guilty verdict in a corruption case cut short her political ambitions. She is serving time in a Bengaluru prison.
The two women were among the close family members who told her she was the biological daughter of the late leader, Amrutha claims.
She says she was adopted by Jayalalithaa’s elder sister, Shylaja, who died in 2015. Shylaja’s husband Sarathy died in March this year. On his deathbed, he confessed he was in a relationship with Jayalalithaa, the petition claims.
Amrutha has also demanded that Jayalalithaa’s body, buried at Chennai’s Marina Beach, be exhumed and cremated in accordance with the Vaishnava Brahmin rituals. The woman had earlier made similar claims in letters to the President, Prime Minister, SC judges and CBI.