Seeking to take the wind out of the sails of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and rebel leader O. Panneerselvam, the AIADMK — Amma’s ‘ousted’ deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran, at a massive rally here on Monday, urged the Tamil Nadu government to order a probe into the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
“From the beginning, I have said that we (Sasikala family) have nothing to hide, and therefore, nothing to fear. So, I am asking the government now to order a probe,” declared Mr. Dhinakaran at a rally attended by thousands of cadre.
The rally at Melur, organised to celebrate the birth centenary of party founder M.G. Ramachandran, turned out to be a platform for Mr. Dhinakaran, who was sidelined by Mr. Palaniswami’s camp, to showcase his resourcefulness in organising a mammoth turnout.
Referring to the demand of AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) leader Panneerselvam, he said, “In fact, it was Mr. Panneerselvam and others who were in charge (of the administration) at the time of Amma’s (Jayalalithaa’s) death. If there is a probe, they should be enquired first.”
He ridiculed the claim of Mr. Panneerselvam’s faction that they were waging a ‘ dharma yudham ’. “What they are doing is not a ‘ dharma yudham ,’ but a war against dharma ,” he said.
Most of Mr. Dhinakaran’s speech was sharply critical of Mr. Palaniswami and his Cabinet colleagues, MLAs and other party functionaries supporting the latter.
‘You owe it to Sasikala’
Stating that MLAs alone are not the party, Mr. Dhinakaran urged the government led by Mr. Palaniswami to bear in mind that they are in power because of party general secretary V.K. Sasikala (now jailed) and act according to the wishes of party cadre and the public.
Justifying his earlier comments that recent actions of Mr. Palaniswami and a few others to sideline him amounted to cheating punishable under Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, he said, “The party cannot be run by a few people conducting closed-door meetings in the head office and indulging in acts of forgery (misuse of the AIADMK letterhead). They do not have any connect with the public or the party cadre.”
He also accused the faction led by Mr. Palaniswami of kidnapping and detaining a few MLAs to prevent them from attending the meeting on Monday.
He also accused the faction of denying police permission for the meeting, because of which the court had to be approached.
Arguing that the party should focus on registering a huge victory in the 2019 Parliamentary elections, he said that the State government should therefore focus on implementing policies that would benefit the people.
Asking Mr. Palaniswami and his faction not to get carried away by the fact that they were in power, he said, “We are the commanders of the party, who are serving our cadre. If the cadre order us, we would not hesitate to take extreme steps.”
