TN Assembly Confidence Trick Meant To Hush Up Jaya Murder?

Opinion

TSV Hari, Chennai

2107 words, 12 minutes reading

Southern Features News Services Exclusive

Did Sasikala mar Tamil Nadu’s political horizon to cover up what can be a suspected case of murder of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa?

Sasikala’s flunkey Edappadi Palanisamy [EPS] shamelessly has claimed to have won – what can be termed the ‘mistrust’ vote on the floor of the assembly. Reports said Sasikala was given the privilege of enjoying the scene on a television screen within the Bangalore Parapana Agrahara prison and gloated over the event.

The event points to a crime most foul: the possible murder of former CM J Jayalalithaa.

Pointers:

I.                On September 22, Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospital suffering from ‘fever and dehydration’ Operative portions of a media report: Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospital for fever and dehydration. The hospital then shortly issued a statement saying she was under observation and that she had “no fever now” and was subsisting on a “normal diet.”

II.            But, Ramaseetha, a lady doctor who had been stationed at the emergency ward in Apollo, told the media that the CM was brought in dead. Rather surprisingly, despite the lady being ready to depose in court, no one has asked her to. OPS made fantastic charges. But, he has failed to file a complaint in a police station in this regard. Deepa, Jayalalithaa's niece who can gain from this politically, [the statement was made at a platform provided by Deepa] is yet to make any reaction to this claim public. Why did it take so long for Apollo polo players to challenge this woman and get her jailed?

III.       On September 24 AIADMK party members dismissed reports that Jayalalithaa will be flown to Singapore for further treatment. On these reports that appeared in a section of media, including on social media, AIADMK party spokesperson CR Saraswathi said, “It is false information. She is not going anywhere...someone is spreading wrong news. She will soon return home.”

IV.        Apollo Hospitals said that Jayalalithaa would be discharged from the hospital in a few days and would resume normal official duties soon.

V.             Operative portion of a Press Trust of India report published in the Times of India, September 27 2016 citing an official press release of the Government of Tamil Nadu:

VI.        Holding an official meeting on the Cauvery row at a hospital here where she is being treated, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today deputed a cabinet colleague to attend a meeting with her Karnataka counterpart and the Centre as suggested by the Supreme Court on the issue.

VII.    Jayalalithaa, undergoing treatment for fever and dehydration, held an hour-long consultation with state Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao, Advocate General R Muthukumarasamy and other senior state officials at the Apollo Hospital in the city, where she was admitted on September 22.

VIII.  “The chief minister was apprised that the Supreme Court had directed the Attorney General to facilitate a meeting with Executive Heads of the States of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with the Ministry of Water Resources to recommend ways to break the impasse on the issue,” an official press release said. She discussed in detail the issues to be taken up by Tamil Nadu at the meeting and also “dictated” her speech which will be read out there by Rao, it said.

IX.        In her report, Times of India dated the same day, journalist Julie Mariappan added:

X.            The meeting in Apollo Hospitals saw the participation of chief secretary P Rama Mohana Rao, advocate general R Muthukumaraswamy, advisor to government Sheela Balakrishnan, principal secretary I to chief minister K N Venkataramanan and Secretary IV A Ramalingam.

XI.        Operative excerpts from a Times of India report published on October 22 2016 by Julie Mariappan that said: Governor C Vidyasagar Rao visited Apollo Hospitals, where chief minister J Jayalalithaa is undergoing treatment. This is his second visit to the hospital, ever since the chief minister was admitted on September 22.

“The Governor visited the CM in the ward where she is undergoing treatment. The governor was happy to note that the CM is progressing well,” a Raj Bhavan statement said, after Rao’s visit.

Apollo Hospitals chairman Pratap C Reddy briefed the governor in detail about the treatment being given to the CM. Jayalalithaa is being treated by a team of experts consisting of doctors from critical care group of the hospitals, senior cardiologist, senior respiratory physician, senior consultant, infectious diseases, endocrinologist, diabetologist and dieticians.

“The chairman, Apollo hospitals appraised [sic] the governor that the CM continues to be under treatment and observation for all vital parameters, respiratory support and passive physiotherapy. The CM is interacting and responding remarkably to the treatment,” the statement said.

Rao thanked the team of doctors attending the CM for the “excellent care” given by them.

XII.   Rao was one of those who actually never got to see Jayalalithaa, actress Gautami Tadimalla said.

Another media report added thus:

Questioned whether Tamil Nadu Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao met Jayalalithaa in the hospital, Dr Balaji [who was addressing the media along with London physician Dr Beale and Dr A Babu] said the Governor met her during his second visit. “Jayalalithaa showed him a thumbs up sign,” Balaji said.

  

XIII.  A television report averred that Rao actually did not meet Jayalalithaa at all!

There was worse.

XIV.                       Those denied the opportunity of meeting Jayalalithaa include the number 2 in TN cabinet OPS, India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, TN’s leader of opposition Stalin, and of course, the Governor – all of whom are constitutional authorities.

So, here are queries on the gaffes:

a.             Was Jayalalithaa alive when brought in on September 22 2016?

b.            If yes, why were constitutional authorities like the Governor, PM, acting CM, Leader of Opposition and others prevented from seeing the ailing Jayalalithaa?

c.               When did Jayalalithaa actually die – if one were to go along the Apollo statement on December 5 2016? There were a series of flip flops over the timing. And if one goes by the sheer timing of it all, senior journalist Cho Ramaswamy was wheeled into the ICU – when efforts to revive Jayalalithaa, the hospital claimed, were still underway^[1]. 

Did anyone in authority bother to question the doctors who treated Cho Ramaswamy?

The concentric, complex confirmation of the above:

As the CM, EPS holds the home portfolio and hence has the cops under his control. The brown-shirt fraternity of Tamil Nadu is notorious for hushing up high profile murders. Offhand, two instances can be cited. 

The first is the triple murder of former bureaucrat Dr Saravanan, his wife and servant maid. The second is that of Sadiq Batcha, who could have blown the lid off the 2G telecom spectrum scandal. Together, the 2 scams have caused roughly Rs.80 lakh crores to disappear!

The worst part is that latest confidence trick exercise seen in the assembly in its entirety is illegal. It has left the state’s realpolitik mug permanently pock-marked.

Here is why:

a.   The whole exercise began with Sasikala being elected the General Secretary of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam [AIADMK].

The so-called election was patently illegal if one goes by the constitution of that party. AIADMK by-laws available in the Election Commission’s website state that the party general secretary can only be declared elected by the political unit’s representatives from all the states – including those from Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh plus the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during a specially convened General Council to ‘elect’ a ‘proper’ candidate who ought to have been an uninterrupted member for 5 years. Such an event never happened.

b.  The later-day ‘hero’ and currently ex-Chief Minister O Panneerselvam [OPS] bent double when handing over the relevant resolution to Sasikala a few weeks ago. He ‘implored’ her to be the General Secretary. He became an accessory to a patently illegal act.

c.   On the basis of her election as the AIADMK GS, Sasikala Natarajan claimed to be in possession of the Divine Right to rule TN. To achieve that end, a strange logic was presented: Two power centres cannot exist in the AIADMK, a chorus of yes-men and yes-women said. OPS publicly stated that he was resigning to uphold the larger interests of the party as Sasikala was ‘elected’ as the legislative party leader on the strength of her having already been elected as the GS. One lie became the basis of another lie.

d.  More illegal acts followed. Governor Vidyasagar Rao’s office stated that it did not receive the hard copy of OPS’s resignation. The signature on the faxed copy of the quit letter, reports added, did not tally with the signature appended to his accepting to be CM on the wee hours of December 6 2016. So, the resignation and its acceptance were per se illegal acts.

e.   OPS declared that he was coerced to sign – against his will. That constituted an offence under 503 IPC – which could have been tackled at the level of a local police station. Had OPS registered an FIR, holding the Home Portfolio, OPS could have directed the Director General of Police to summon Sasikala Natarajan for questioning in any police station. In a jiffy, the legislators cocooned in the vice den called Golden Bay Resort would have been scared and scampered to safety, thus scuppering Sasikala’s plans. On its part, the police force has the right to take suo motu action to safeguard law and order. That constituted 2 omissions – contributing to other illegal acts.

Finally, on the basis of all these, Governor Vidyasagar Rao claimed that he had no alternative but to invite Sasikala’s major domo Edappadi Palanisamy [EPS] to form the government.

f.     More illegal acts followed.

EPS got senior IPS officers to disguise themselves as watch and ward staff in the assembly – which is per se illegal. The cops brazenly assaulted the Leader of Opposition and allegedly ripped his shirt off.

Seeing the game slipping away, DMK legislators lost the plot, behaved like organ grinder’s monkeys bitten by rabies infested curs, 2 scorpions and a rattlesnake – simultaneously and went berserk inside the house.

g.   The rules of the house clearly state that if the entire opposition places a demand for a secret ballot, the speaker has to accede to the request. It would be pure conjecture now in hindsight to second guess what could have happened if a secret ballot had been taken. But, that accorded speaker Dhanapal the alibi he needed to evict the opposition to get the confidence vote [more of a confidence trick, rather] passed.

h.  That constitutes another illegal act in itself. But, if someone were to question this in courts of law, the age old bad penny about the supremacy of legislature for acts within its precincts would return with a vengeance. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu, the state once ruled by the likes of Rajagopalachari, Bhaktavatsalam, Annadurai, Kamaraj and MGR has the wallow in the filth of those who shamed democracy. Thespian Kamal Haasan correctly corrupted the spelling and called it de-mock-crazy.

There are some other unanswered questions.

i.     Were OPS and Rao blind to all that happened since September 22 2016 when Jaya was admitted to Apollo Hospitals?

ii.              It was OPS who proposed the name of Sasikala for the post of General Secretary. Since that was illegal, will someone seek legal action for that original sin?

iii.          Would OPS care to explain as to why did he not register a police complaint under 503 IPC charging Sasikala with criminal intimidation?

The role of Dr Subramanian Swamy – who continues to demand a ‘royal treatment’ for Sasikala – triggers a few unanswered questions to be raised:

a.   Did doctor Swamy believe Dr Pratap Reddy – the Chairman of Apollo Hospitals who claimed Jaya had recovered when he tweeted thus on October 26 2016?

JJ bhaktas should be happy because I learn that JJ has got back her consciousness and may be discharged soon.

Dr Swamy is a close friend of Pratap Reddy, according to senior journalist GS Chawla, editor, Punjab Kesri.

Operative portions of a citation:

In a recent article by Punjab Kesri journalist G.S. Chawla the following was said: “People do not know that Subramanian Swamy has been close to the controversial godman Chandraswami and Dr Prathap Reddy of Apollo hospital. All of them were members of a trust founded by Chandraswami. The enforcement directorate had found serious irregularities in the accounts of the trust in which some foreign currency was deposited. The finance ministry planned to act against all the three trustees.”

All along Dr Reddy has been endorsing whatever Sasikala said about Jaya treatment in Apollo.

Dr Swamy was insisting on Sasikala being made CM by Governor Rao.

Now, Dr Swamy has said that “Sasikala should be shifted to a a jail in Tamil Nadu after Palanisamy becomes CM in the interest of security”

b.  Why is Dr Swamy, whose complaint had resulted in the final verdict that sent Sasikala to jail going overboard in being protective of Jaya’s former maid?

[1]

Operative excerpts from an earlier report:

Around 3-o-clock in the evening, senior journalist Cho S Ramaswamy – also unwell and an in-patient at Apollo – was being shifted to the ICCU – as he too had become critical, or so the grapevine said.

One wondered as to how another person would be shifted into the ICCU when it was out of bounds for everyone as Jayalalithaa was in it. Whenever, she occupied that room, it was out of bounds for the rest of humanity.

A little bit of thinking, led to the raising of eyebrows.

“Has something bad happened to Jaya?”

Before long, news channels broke the story that Jaya was no more.

It was retracted a few minutes later by a press statement from Apollo.

The little grey cells in the brain yelled: “It is a ruse by the hospital and the state’s police machinery to disperse the crowds, fearing harm to the hospital.

“Soon, close to midnight, the announcement that she is no more would come,” one muttered under the breath.

It did.