It was a sombre moment for O. Panneerselvam, 63, when he came to Fort St. George, the seat of power of the State government, for the first time after taking oath as Chief Minister on Monday afternoon.
Like his colleagues in the AIADMK, he was apparently yet to come out of the shock caused by the conviction of party general secretary Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case in the Bangalore Special Court. “He is very much depressed,” says an official who briefly met the Chief Minister at the Secretariat.
Mr. Panneerselvam, who was till now number 2 in the Jayalalithaa Ministry, reached the Secretariat about 3.15 p.m. He did not go to the chamber earmarked for the Chief Minister. Instead, he went to the chamber from where he functioned as Finance and Public Works Minister. It had no nameplate. Police officers at the Secretariat said the CM’s chamber was kept ready with a new table and chair as the ones used by Ms. Jayalalithaa were removed to the ante-room.
His Cabinet colleagues, all grim-faced, spent some time with him. Chief Secretary Mohan Verghese Chunkath, Adviser Sheela Balakrishnan, Principal Secretary (Home) Apurva Varma and Principal Secretary (Public) Jatindranath Swain were closeted with him. Officers attached to the Chief Minister’s Office, including M. Sheela Priya, K. N. Venkataramanan, A. Ramalingam and R. Sudalaikannan, visited him.
Subsequently, Principal Secretary (Finance) K. Shanmugam met him separately. The next came Director-General of Police K. Ramanujam, along with Additional DGP (Law and Order) T.K. Rajendran. Almost at the end, it was the turn of Tamil Development and Information Secretary M. Rajaram and Principal Secretary (Public Works) M. Saikumar.
Asked whether Mr. Panneerselvam was required to sign any file at the Secretariat, another official replied in the negative. It was enough for him to put his signature on the documents at the Raj Bhavan immediately after he was sworn in, he said. Some persons other than journalists also gathered on the corridor outside his chamber. After half-an-hour, the police asked them to leave. When Mr. Panneerselvam emerged from the chamber, it was about 4.40 p.m.
