Controversy and mystery associated with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s political career continue unabated and has reached new heights in spite of her hospitalisation. Even as all Opposition party leaders welcomed the move by the Governor C Vidyasagar Rao to temporarily allocate the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa, who has been hospitalised since September 22, to her close confidant and Minister of Finance O Panneerselvam, the DMK president M Karunanidhi came out in the open on Wednesday morning questioning the propriety of that decision.
Governor Vidyasagar Rao in a release late Tuesday evening had announced that he was allocating the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa to Panneerselvam till Jayalalithaa resumes her normal duties. He also said in the release that the order is being issued as per the advice of the Chief Minister.
Karunanidhi, in a statement described as surprising the Governor’s order issued late Tuesday evening that the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa were allocated to Panneerselvam on the advice of the Chief Minister. “We would like to know whether Jayalalithaa had sent a signed release to the Governor,” said Karunanidhi who also pointed out that no leaders had been allowed to meet the ailing Chief Minister.
But strangely enough, all political leaders including MK Stalin, leader of Opposition who is Karunanidhi’s own son, had welcomed the Governor’s action. “This will help remove the uncertainty as well as the standstill in governance which were staring Tamil Nadu,” said leaders of the Congress, the BJP, the lefts and the VCK.
R Ramachandran Nair, a widely revered bureaucrat, who was the Chief Secretary of Kerala during the most politically tumultuous period in the 1990s told The Pioneer that there was nothing wrong or questionable in Governor Vidyasagar Rao’s order reallocating the portfolios held by Jayalalithaa to Panneerselvam. “Please remember that it is the Governor who appoints the Chief Minister and the Council of Ministers. What the Governor has done is theoretically correct and no one can question his action,” said Nair who was a frontrunner for the post of cabinet secretary as the most senior civil servant in the country.
A senior intelligence official said Dr Kalaignar (as Karunanidhi is addressed by partymen and followers) was disappointed that his dream of dying while holding the office of Chief Minister had come down crashing following the DMK’s defeat in the 2016 Assembly election. “It was his ambition to die while n office so that he would get a memorial at Chennai’s Marina Beach, adjacent to the memorials of Annadurai and MG Ramachandran. That ambition will also go down with him,” said the official.
Meanwhile, Thanthi TV, a popular 24X7 news channel in Tamil telecast a news on Wednesday that Jayalalithaa would be discharged from hospital in ten days as her health has improved considerably. “This is a news collected by Team Thanthi, exclusively monitoring the progress in the heath of the Chief Minister and this was furnished by doctors of the hospital,” said a senior editor of the channel.
Wednesday saw BJP national president Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitly flying down to Chennai and calling on the Apollo Hospital where Jayalalithaa has been admitted. Both the leaders tweeted that they pray to God for the speedy recovery of Jayalalithaa.