At her T Nagar residence in Chennai, after paying floral tributes to Jayalalithaa on her birth anniversary, Sasikala made a very brief but pointed speech.
VK Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s aide and an outlying contender to the AIADMK legacy, struck a conciliatory note on Wednesday as she urged all followers of the late icon to unite and join forces against the common enemy, the DMK, in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
At her T Nagar residence in Chennai, after paying floral tributes to Jayalalithaa on her birth anniversary, Sasikala made a very brief but pointed speech.
“Amma’s followers should unite and fight for victory. In the forthcoming elections, our target is victory. Very soon I will meet cadre and the public,” Sasikala said.
These remarks by the former DMK leader are supposed to give the headache Edappadi Palaniswami-O Panneerselvam combine as Sasikala is setting a target much higher and valorous than immediate and personal political ends: the defeat of the DMK. Sasikala’s words, at the same time, that she would meet the cadre and public would mean she is in no mood to play a secondary role in the party to Palaniswami and Panneerselvam.
However, it still remains to be seen how the AIADMK would react to such a complex approach by her.
The AIADMK on Monday, worried about the Sasikala factor in upcoming polls, asked its cadres to take a pledge, in the name of J Jayalalithaa on the former chief minister’s birth anniversary by lighting a lamp in their houses, to guard the party.
Top party leaders O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami, in a letter to cadres, said while the “test” of Assembly polls is around the corner in about two months, enemies and betrayers have joined hands to defeat the AIADMK.
Both the leaders, vowing to retain power for the second time in a row, said such ‘anti-people’ forces must be taught a lesson again by vanquishing them through hard work, unity, and allegiance to the party. However, they did not specifically name anyone in their letter.
VK Sasikala, who was late AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa’s confidante, returned to Chennai recently after serving a four-year prison sentence in Bengaluru following conviction in an assets case.
Sasikala and Dhinakaran, both ousted from the party in 2017, had filed a civil suit which is likely to come up in a court here next month challenging decisions of the present leadership of the AIADMK. The AIADMK-led state government, in a disproportionate assets case, recently confiscated properties belonging to Sasikala’s relatives.
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