With the Supreme Court unequivocally concluding that late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had conspired with V.K. Sasikala and two others to amass wealth disproportionate to her known sources of income, a controversy is brewing over the use of Jayalalithaa’s images in Government schemes and Departments.
Questions are being raised about the propriety of using her photos in State-sponsored schemes, though by virtue of her death, the Supreme Court had held that charges against her would stand abated.
When Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami addressed his first press meet at the Secretariat on Monday, a portrait of Jayalalithaa was conspicuous on his table.
Retired civil servant M.G. Devasahayam, an advocate of the concept of probity in public life, terms the situation as “obnoxious and disgusting.” He asserts that framers of the Constitution or law would not have imagined that the photographs of a deemed convict would be kept at government offices one day.
‘Not prohibited by law’
K.T. Rajenthira Bhalaji, who has been a Minister for over five years and who is now holding the portfolio of Milk and Dairy Development, argues that neither law nor the courts have prohibited the use of Jayalalithaa’s portraits.
Incidentally, in 2014, when Jayalalithaa was convicted by a Special Court in Bengaluru in the same case, DMK MLA T.R.B. Rajaa had moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction restraining the authorities from using her photos in Government schemes, departments and functions.
Nothing much happened and Jayalalithaa returned to office after being acquitted by the Karnataka High Court.
Justifying the images of the late leader, Mr. Rajenthira Bhalaji makes a rather weird comparison and asks, “Were not Mahatma Gandhi and ‘Netaji’ Subhas Chandra Bose held by the British regime for breaking the law of the day? Are we not keeping their portraits at government offices?”
Countering him, D. Jagadeesan, social activist and former president of the State unit of the Lok Satta, points out that Mahatma Gandhi and ‘Netaji’ were not convicted for corruption. The British regime had held them guilty for their political campaigns.
