Hardly a day after the passing away of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, rumblings could be heard from second rung leadership of the AIADMK about the factors which led to her hospitalisation and that too in an unconscious State.
“The former Chief Minister’s last public function was the 2016 Independence Day parade at Fort Saint George in Chennai. She was looking very sick, weak and fragile during the entire programme. We had a fear that she may fall down any time even as the parade was in progress,” a senior AIADMK functionary confided to The Pioneer.
The fact that Jayalalithaa was sick during the Independence Day parade was confirmed by a senior staff of Doordarshan Kendra, Chennai which telecast the parade ‘live’. “If you have any doubt, please watch the recordings of the parade. The Chief Minister was seriously ill on that day and she had major difficulty in walking even a step,” said the official.
Intelligence officials too confirmed the doubts expressed by the AIADMK leader and the Doordarshan personnel. “It is true. We thought that she may be hospitalised immediately after the parade. But it took another 40 days for the people who were supposed to look after Jayalalithaa to take her to the hospital,” said one of the senior intelligence officials in Chennai.
Since Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 due to fever and dehydration, a section of the AIADMK leadership went on filing cases against all those who expressed their doubt in the social media over the veracity of the claims made by the hospital management and the party’s spokespersons. If the statements made by the party’s spokespersons were to be believed, Jayalalithaa was literally ruling Tamil Nadu from the hospital.
“She converted a Secretariat into a hospital. Now she has converted a hospital into the Secretariat,” said a comment in the social media as people in the State were fed up with the statements parroted by party spokespersons that all was well with the Jayalalithaa.
An official who witnessed Jayalalithaa flagging off the Chennai Metro Rail Services from little Mount Station to Airport in Chennai on September 22, said he was appalled at the health status of the Chief Minister. “
Her hands were shaking and she was shivering while holding the remote control for unveiling the plaque to mark the beginning of the service,” said the official. Since the AIADMK administration running the show in the absence of the Chief Minister had terrorised the people by slapping criminal defamation cases, no one is willing to come forward to testify.
“Why did the people who were looking after the health of the Chief Minister delay in taking her to the hospitalIJ She should have been taken to the hospital straight from the Independence Day parade,” said a senior political commentator.
Even as the reasons which led to the untimely death of Jayalalithaa is going the rounds, a controversy on the fate of her assets has started.
According to the affidavit submitted by Jayalalithaa in her nomination paper for the 2016 assembly election from RK Nagar constituency in Chennai, the former chief minister has property worth Rs 118.58 crore. This includes the imposing Veda Nilayam, built in an area of 24,000 sq ft in the posh Poes Garden locality , 14.5 acres of farm land near Hyderabad, 3.43 acres of land in Kancheepuram and the Kodanadu Retreat in Western Ghats which is said to be of 800 acres. Whether Jayalalithaa has left a will or not is also not being announced by the party leadership. The contenders of the will, if any, are the Sasikala clan, Deepa Jayakumar and Dipak, children of Jayalalithaa’s late brother Jayakumar.