The first death anniversary of J Jayalalithaa, the former Chief Minister and the general secretary of the AIADMK had all the theatrics and melodrama associated with her persona. Tuesday saw thousands of party cadre from all over Tamil Nadu visiting her memorial at Marina Beach to offer floral tributes to the Honourable Amma (as she was addressed by the party cadre and her followers).
The day also had some interesting and controversial developments as the Returning Officer of RK Nagar Assembly constituency rejecting the nomination papers filed by Deepa Patrick Madhavan, late Jayalalithaa’s niece and actor Vishal for the by-election scheduled for December 21. But late in the evening, Vishal’s nomination was accepted by the returning Officer following the intervention of his lawyers. The RK Nagar seat fell vacant following the demise of Jayalalithaa who has been representing the constituency. Deepa, a maverick politician who floated the outfit MGR Amma Deepa Party (MAD Party for short) and actor Vishal had filed their nomination papers on Monday, the last day for filing the nominations.
Tuesday was the day of scrutiny which saw heated arguments and retorts in the office of the returning officer. Deepa’s nomination paper was rejected because she failed to fill the annexure forms. Vishal’s nomination paper was rejected initially following the claims made by two persons who had proposed his name in the nomination paper.They argued that their signatures were forged and they had nothing to do with Vishal. This was rectified later in the evening by the officials of the Election Commission who decalred that his papers were in order.
Stage is set for a four-cornered contest in R K Nagar between E Madhusudanan of the AIADMK, Maruthu Ganesh of the DMK, TTV Dinakaran, nephew of jailed V.K Sasikala, a close aide of late Jayalalithaa and actor Vishal. Though the BJP has fielded Karu Nagarajan as its candidate, there is no possibility of him eliciting any excitement even among his party cadre. Political observers had opined that Vishal was a decoy candidate sponsored by the DMK and the Dinakaran faction to split the Telugu speaking people’s votes, numbering nearly 35,000.
His candidature is expected to poach the votes of Telugu speaking electorate in the constituency. Madhusudanan belongs to the Telugu speaking community.
Earlier in the day AIADMK steering committee convener O Panneerselvam and chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami led thousands of party cadre to the final resting place of Jayalalithaa at Marina Beach to offer tributes to their Revolutionary leader. Amidst comments by observers that the AIADMK is fast withering away following the death of Jayalalithaa, Panneerselvam administered an oath to those assembled at the site that they would always stand by the ideals formulated by C.N Annadurai, founder of the AIADMK MG Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa. The day also saw latha, niece of MGR visiting the Jayalalithaa Memorial and offered
floral tributes.
“She was a great leader and administrator who kept her family away from politics. Jayalalithaa was the one who took forward the ideals of MGR,” said latha.