Jaya Peravai urges Sasikala to contest from RK Nagar

District units of the Peravai have passed a resolution insisting that Ms. Sasikala take over the reins of government as well as the AIADMK.

CHENNAI, 18/12/2016 : For Tamil Nadu Desk : Revenue Minister and J. Jayalalithaa Peravai secretary R. B. Udhayakumar along with party functionaries gather to pay homage to former Chief Minister and party general secretary Jayalalithaa, at her memorial in the Marina Beach in Chennai on Sunday, adopted a resolution urging V.K.Sasikala, the confidante of late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to take over as general secretary of the party. Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam

The chorus within sections of the ruling AIADMK urging V.K. Sasikala to take over as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has grown louder.

The Jayalalithaa Peravai, a key wing of the party, on Sunday appealed to her to contest from the Dr Radhakrishnan Nagar (RK Nagar) Assembly constituency in Chennai, where a vacancy has arisen following Jayalalithaa’s death.

Jayalalithaa Peravai secretary and Revenue Minister R.B. Udhayakumar announced that all 50 district unit secretaries of the wing had unanimously passed a resolution insisting that Ms. Sasikala take over the reins of government as well as the AIADMK. Mr. Udhayakumar and his associates from the Jayalalithaa Peravai went to the Jayalalithaa Memorial on the Marina and placed a copy of the resolution to invoke her “blessings” and then took it to Veda Nilayam in Poes Garden to present it to Ms. Sasikala.

According to Mr. Udhayakumar, the Jayalalithaa Peravai had resolved that Ms. Sasikala should continue the “ Amma (Jayalalithaa) Government’s” service to the people and “save Tamil Nadu” as well as the party by taking over as Chief Minister of the State.

Mr. Udhayakumar claimed that even when Jayalalithaa was alive, Ms. Sasikala had formed a ‘Puratchi Thalaivi Amma Charitable Trust’ and carried out various selfless services to society without any publicity.

The Minister further claimed that when he and two other ministers toured from RK Nagar to Kanniyakumari in the last few days as part of the Jayalalithaa Peravai, they found that all the AIADMK cadre spoke in one voice on the need for Ms. Sasikala to head the party and the government.

The cadre, according to him, saw her as the sole political heir to Jayalalithaa as they believed that Ms. Sasikala had a role in all the achievements of the late leader.

Incidentally, Mr. Udhayakumar rose to prominence when, as Information and Technology Minister in May 2011, he walked barefoot to his office at the Secretariat, claiming he had taken a vow not to wear footwear on the path trod by Jayalalithaa. Later, he started wearing footwear on the “orders” of Jayalalithaa.