Amma's soul will not forgive Sasikala, TTV Dhinakaran: O Panneerselvam
Chennai: It was an interesting and exciting mosaic of ferocious attack on the DMK by the ruling AIADMK leaders addressing their 'Eelam' rallies across the state late Tuesday evening. Nothing of this kind has been ever witnessed since the two bitter rivals in Tamil Nadu politics competed for power over the last 36 years.
In the process, the campaign theme 'exposing' the role of the DMK-Congress coalition that ruled at the Centre in May 2009 in the defeat of the Eelam cause and the massacre of thousands of Tamils got muffled.
While Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami singled out DMK leader M. K. Stalin for his broadside at Salem, even with an unprecedented choice of harshness in language, the deputy CM O. Panneerselvam and health minister Dr C. Vijayabaskar focused their fire on rival AMMK chief TTV Dhinakaran.
Speaking on his home turf of Theni, OPS droped a bombshell claiming that the Apollo Hospital had turned down his repeated requests to shift Jayalalithaa to the US for treatment. “The Apollo administration paid no heed to my repeated pleas. I had even pointed out to them that the AIADMK cadres would erupt in anger if anything untoward happened to her”, said the deputy CM even as an inquiry commission headed by a retired high court judge is at the task of probing the hospitalisation and death of Jayalalithaa.
The state government had constituted this Justice Arumugasamy Commission following doubts raised by OPS and several other top AIADMK leaders in her hospital treatment and death. However, most of that 'blame' had been directed at her associate V K Sasikala who was accused of not permitting anyone in the party and the Cabinet to see Jayalalithaa in her Apollo ward. Even though he repeated that charge again at the Theni oration, OPS' attack on the hospital indicated a significant shift. “Amma was in the hospital for 75 days, yet none of us (ministers, party seniors) was allowed to see her even once”, said OPS.
Apollo has been maintaining all along that all its treatment protocol had been not just transparent but also in total conformity with international standards of medical care, with specialists flown in from London and the AIIMS to assist.
“All of us, the lakhs of AIADMK cadres, had been praying for Amma's recovery and conducting special poojas in various temples; but Dhinakaran was nowhere to be seen. Amma's soul will not forgive them (TTV,Sasikala)”, OPS thundered.
Health minister Vijayabaskar had his 'Eelam' rally at his native Pudukottai, where he threw a robust challenge to TTV asking him if he would dare to contest against him at that constituency. And then, referring to TTV's RK Nagar by-election victory, the minister declared he “got into this much of trouble only because I worked for him at the RK Nagar poll”.
It may be recalled that the Income-Tax sleuths had raided Vijayabaskar during the flood of money in the campaign for TTV, who was then the AIADMK candidate at RK Nagar and reported seizure of large amount of money and documents indicating heavy distribution of cash for votes-which ultimately led to the Election Commission cancelling the by-poll.
“He (TTV) thinks he can achieve anything with money. In fact, I got into all these problems because I had worked for him at RK Nagar”, said Vijayabaskar-perhaps unaware of the implications in his 'public confession' even as the CBI has joined the IT in the probe of that infamous by-poll scam.
The AIADMK's Eelam diary on Tuesday had yet another blast-agriculture minister R. Duraikannu was at the peak of anger at his Thanjavur rally thundering that anyone speaking against the AIADMK government would have their tongues chopped off.
The DMK-Congress leaders should be hauled before the International Court of Justice to stand trial for their role in the Eelam tragedy, said fisheries minister D Jayakumar at his Tondiarpet (north Chennai) public meeting. The rest of his long oration was directed at the DMK, a party he accused was “unique in changing its colours like the chameleon”. “Stalin cannot stop us from retaining power (next election), whatever deceitful drama he enacts”, said the flamboyant orator.
