Real reasons behind postponement of Sasikala swearing in revealed

From TSV Hari, Chennai, Vakratund Varma, New Delhi

1178 words, 7 minutes reading

Southern Features News Services Exclusive

Chennai, New Delhi [SFNS] Tamil Nadu’s acting Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao has refused to swear VK Sasikala in as the Chief Minister.

This was despite Sasikala being elected as the leader of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislature party.

“The reason could only be that she may have to answer tough questions in courts. One such case is yet to be registered – and that would pertain to the role played by Sasikala in what seems like extremely mysterious circumstances that led to the sudden death of Jayalalithaa,” a top police official said in Chennai on condition of anonymity.

Governor Rao met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the eve of what could have been the ‘D’ Day for his trip to Chennai to administer the oath of office to Sasikala, media reports said.

Excerpts:

In a major development, AIADMK General Secretary VK Sasikala’s swearing-in ceremony was deferred.

Tamil Nadu Governor Vidyasagar Rao sought the opinion of the Attorney General in view of the controversy surrounding Sasikala’s appointment as CM.

VK Sasikala was set to take oath as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on February 7 2017.

Top sources told SFNS that a controversial press conference held in Chennai that dragged the name of Governor Rao led to the deferment. Operative excerpts and relevant controversial gaps in the narrative:

Controversial part 

Doctors of Apollo hospital who treated former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa held a press conference in Chennai to dispel rumours surrounding her death.

Questioned whether Tamil Nadu Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao met Jayalalithaa in the hospital, Tamil Nadu government doctor P Balaji said the Governor met her during his second visit.

“Jayalalithaa showed him a ‘thumbs up’ sign,” Balaji said.

Dr Richard Beale, a London-based doctor who closely monitored Jayalalithaa's case, assured that there was no conspiracy behind her death.

When asked why the world was made to believe that she was improving despite she was critically ill, the doctors answered, “This is a policy related question, and we are doctors, so we cannot answer that. After she was put on the ventilator, she wasn’t able to communicate with the officials.”

Emphasis supplied.

During the first visit of the Governor, Rao did not meet Jaya, the above paragraphs suggest.

Operative portions of another press report suggest a different tale.

On September 27 2016, officials – including currently disgraced ex-Chief Secretary Ram Mohan Rao, secretaries to the late CM Venkataramanan and Ramalingam – believed to be close to outgoing CM O Panneerselvam [OPS] – had met Jaya, claimed an official press release. The matter was reported by one of Chennai’s young, bright journalists – Julie Mariappan of the Times of India. The two secretaries and their senior Sheela Balakrishnan were said to have been forced to leave their posts on the eve of Sasikala being elected as legislature party leader.

The question to be asked is, whether the hospital is in possession of any report about the treatment that suggest the necessity of Jayalalithaa being put on a ventilator between September 27 2016 and October 2 2016.

The report is not clear about the date on which Jayalalithaa was placed on ventilator.

The relevant portions of the press report dated October 2 2016:

Tamil Nadu Governor Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao on Saturday visited ailing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at a hospital in Chennai and was happy to note she was “recovering well”.

Rao visited the chief minister in the ward where she is being given treatment and stated he was “thankful” to the doctors who took him there and for explaining in detail the treatment given to her. He presented a basket of fruits and wished Jayalalithaa a speedy recovery.

Upon his visit to the Apollo Hospitals where he stayed for about 30 minutes, Rao was briefed by its Chairman Pratap C Reddy on the treatment being given to Jayalalithaa, a Raj Bhavan release said.

 Controversial part:

Press reports citing statements issued by the state Governor’s office did not mention a personal meeting between Rao and Jayalalithaa during his second visit.

Operative excerpts from a report published in The Times of India dated October 22 2016, with the by-line of Julie Mariappan:

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 apprised 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.

Emphasis supplied

Controversial part

Patients on ventilator support can indeed communicate with others.

Jayalalithaa’s personal friend and senior journalist Cho S Ramaswamy was admitted to the same hospital. Despite being on ventilator support, he communicated with many guests by scribbling on a note pad.

Senior journalists in Chennai witnessed such events.

There is no talk about Jayalalithaa having suffered from a paralytic stroke.

Hence, she could have scribbled her interactions with the Governor. There are no indications of such an event.

Controversial part

On the matter of photographing Jayalalithaa when she was critically ill, Dr Beale said, “Images of critically ill patients are not taken. I don’t understand why reasonable people would expect that such an act should be committed,” Dr Beale said.

Jayalalithaa visited Cho S Ramaswamy in Apollo Hospital when he was critically ill.

Operative excerpts from a report in The News Minute:

With journalist and political commentator Cho Ramaswamy passing away less than a day after his friend, former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, was laid to rest near MGR Memorial, an old video of the two of them has resurfaced.

The video showed Jayalalithaa visiting Cho in the hospital and assuring him that he would be back on his feet soon. “It’s always a pleasure to see you,” said Jayalalithaa as Cho apologised for putting her into the trouble of visiting him. She was heard telling him that the doctors were optimistic that he would make a recovery. 

Jayalalithaa's cheery demeanour and the warmth were apparent during their conversation.

At the time the video was shot, there were rumours that Jayalalithaa was seriously ill. The visit dispelled such ideas. 

Cho and Jayalalithaa knew each other for about sixty years. 

Images were beamed on television.

Dr Beale, Dr Balaji and Dr B. Abraham, who claimed to be in the know of the treatment accorded to Jayalalithaa, have uttered sentences that are not exactly adding up in logical terms.

The truth is yet to be established.

Also read:

https://haritsv.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/has-sasikala-i

https://haritsv.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/tamil-nadu-politics-whodunnit

http://southernfeaturesnewsservice.blogspot.in/2017/01/end-of-jallikkattu-drama-marks-start-of.html

RM/M/KMT/TSV

SFNS is a news service with a difference. News is narrated succinctly and in detail - for the reader to understand - every event it its complete perspective.

For further info, contact: haritsv@hotmail.com

End of Jallikkattu Drama Marks Start of Sasikala's Troubles?

From TSV Hari, Chennai, Vakratund Varma, New Delhi

1746 words, 20 minutes reading

Southern Features News Services Exclusive

Chennai, New Delhi [SFNS]: Has Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a clever move to defuse the political situation in Tamil Nadu that had arisen due to the massive Jallikkattu protests? Has the PM thereby checkmated the sinister designs of Sasikala and her scheming husband M Natarajan who were believed to be behind the stir?

Should one read more into protestors' rejection of the ordinance passed by the Tamil Nadu government - demanding a more permanent solution to the Jallikkattu imbroglio?

Is there more than what meets the eye in protesters' refusal to leave Chennai's Marina Beach demanding a permanent amendment of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act in order to allow Jallikkattu for ever?

Are these attempts meant to prevent a probe Sasikala’s hand in the mysterious death of Jayalalithaa? ^[1]

Will the illegal stay of Sasikala and co at Veda Nilayam, Jaya’s residence sans any will and/or testament come to an end?

The Jallikkattu restoration demand - relegated to the cold storage for 3 years - had been suddenly resurrected to pose a challenge to the centre, intelligence reports are said to have indicated to the centre. It was an operation, meant to directly pose twin challenges to the leadership of PM Modi and also to the office of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister - currently held by O Panneerselvam. The underlying message from Sasikala and her husband Natarajan - “either allow Sasikala, currently General Secretary of the AIADMK, to peacefully ascend the throne and rule Tamil Nadu for the rest of the term - or face an unprecedented backlash of violence in the state.”

In a day of swift developments - the decks for restoration of Jallikkattu were cleared in a jiffy by the centre, its Presidential assent necessity circumvented, passed by the state cabinet and okayed by the state's acting Governor Ch. Vidyasagar Rao - all within a span of 24 hours.

The week-long dormant issue of Jayalalithaa's sudden, mysterious death has returned like the proverbial bad penny triggering a startling question - will there be a questioning of Sasikala on her role in the unexplained worsening of late Jayalalithaa's health by the Central Bureau of Investigation as the Madras High Court expressed an intention to even exhume her interred body if necessary?

Meanwhile, following the promulgation of the ordinance to hold the bull-taming festival, the curiously meaningless pro-Jallikkattu protests have come to an end. A popular Tamil periodical welcomed the passage, but expressed fears of courts stymieing the issue again.

Prime Minister Modi had paved the way for the facile passage of an ordinance to hold the bull-taming festival. For 5 days running, Chennai remained closed for business. The globe’s 2^nd longest sea-front had remained grid-locked throwing transportation out of gear.

But, the so-called “closure” of the issue has raised more questions than provision of answers.

“The whole thing is meaningless. The ‘official’ day for Jallikkattu will occur only a year later, so what was this hullabaloo all about?”

The question came from a devout septuagenarian Hindu supporter of the sport – Srinivasan Ramaseshan.

Very curiously, the fever-pitched clamour for Sasikala’s elevation as the Chief Minister, loudly audible and brazenly visible till a few days ago, had disappeared from the news radars following the publication a report that punched holes in the tales put out by Apollo Hospital and Sasikala about the events leading to Jaya's abrupt death and her aide's questionable role in preventing visits by constitutionally empowered VVIPs to meet the ailing CM. The report had suggested that Apollo has reportedly worked out its "exit route" from the imbroglio as has the centre - leaving Sasikala and her coterie exposed and at the centre of the cross-hairs of the wrath of the judiciary.

Must read:

http://wp.me/p7bYkZ-SX
http://wp.me/p7bYkZ-RX

“It seemed as though Sasikala’s suspect role in late CM Jayalalithaa’s death had slipped from everyone’s memory. All of a sudden the frenzy to make her CM has evaporated thanks to Jallikkattu stir. The whole drama was too pat and too much loaded in favour of only Sasikala and her husband Natarajan. Everyone else – including Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and PM Narendra Modi were being verbally brick-batted. Further, few in the crowd have heard of Alanganallur, the headquarters of Jallikkattu, located some 400 km south of capital Chennai. Members of uniformed police force, under the alibi of openly canvassing for the sport, made public statements at the protest bang opposite the state police headdquarters that could start a violent anti-national wave. All these were unhealthy trends, and left one extremely worried. I am on the wrong side of 70 and remember how under the guise of anti-Hindi agitations ^[2], our holy threads were cut by DMK youths shouting separatist slogans. There was large scale violence, looting and worse. Significantly, the entire Dravidian movement was born of fissiparous tendencies that demanded – among other things – continuance of British rule or a separate, independent Dravidastan – the exact replica of the demand one sees in Kashmir – albeit under a different alibi,” Ramaseshan averred.

The hurried manner in which the whole thing happened citing law and order issues raised eyebrows.

“Decks were cleared to hold the sport in a jiffy. All the political stakeholders have said ‘aye’ to the project. The state cabinet and the Governor have affixed signatures on the ordinance within a few hours – ending a 3-year wait. If it was this easy, and did not need the President’s assent and other procedural niceties, why did all this drama take place? Who benefited from it? And very importantly, can the game be held on a non-official day [the official one being January 15] just like that? Wouldn’t that be the violation of the cultural ethos as well? Frankly, I do not understand any of this,” Ramaseshan observed.

“Schools, colleges, varsities and government establishments being ‘unofficially’ asked to remain shut0 seems a mystery. Shops were ‘advised’ to down shutters across the state. One wonders as to who issued the orders and why. The state’s police HQ and the Fort St George Secretariat are like 2 door posts to the Beach Road and hence a vast crowd of a few lakhs cannot gather unobtrusively. That such an event happened, in itself, is suspicious. The worst part is that separatist slogans and shouts hailing slain terrorists - ex-Tamil Tiger boss V Prabhakaran and Osama bin Laden with huge posters in tow were prominently seen ^[3] triggering fears of Tamil Nadu becoming a Kashmir,” Ramaseshan, a resident of Triplicane, abutting the Marina pointed out.

Media reports revealed this phenomenon.

Even as sections of the media continued to hail the “orderly conduct” of the protest, a different view of the reality emerged. And it is rowdy behaviour of the protestors – pure and simple. ^[4]

The separatist angle has ominous portents.

Pakistan’s dreaded ISI operates brazenly from neighbouring Sri Lanka.

During the United Progressive Alliance regime, the Manmohan Singh government had wantonly overlooked a startling fact that the ISI is known to have close links with members of the LTTE - who survived the 2009 decimation by the Lankan army.

For over 11 years, India’s intelligence agencies have been dreading the large scale influx of separatist influence in southern India through the ISI-LTTE nexus.

Has the PM has checkmated Sasikala and defeated what is believed to be the diabolic brinkmanship of her husband Natarajan through a series of measures to clear the Jallikkattu do? 

Will Natarajan stretch a hitherto little-known culturally relevant sporting event of interior Tamil Nadu to gigantic proportions to challenge the might and majesty of the Indian state?

Only time can provide the answer to that one.

Obviously, the centre has its task cut out. At this point in time – on can only say that the hubby-wife duo has bitten off more than it can chew.

[1]

“One has to take a close look at various aspects of the Jallikkattu struggle where pro LTTE, separatist, Tamil Eelam, Tamil nationalist, anti-India, anti PM and anti state CM slogans are being shouted with impunity. There are reports that managements of a few private schools in Chennai that remained open during the unofficial shut-down were not-so-politely questioned about their belief in Tamil causes. Senior police officials who used to subscribe to nationalist blogs till the other day, have opted out – either out of fear or because they have joined ‘the other side.’ Tamil Nadu’s former Chief Secretary Ram Mohan Rao and his business pals – considered very close to CM OPS were raided by central authorities at the alleged behest of Sasikala and her husband Natarajan. The central government’s Finance Portfolio is being handled by Arun Jaitley who is not exactly loyal to PM Modi. Only someone very politically smart like M Natarajan who claims to have authored the success of Jayalalithaa herself can dream all this up. And finally, let us remember that Natarajan had been arrested when Jayalalithaa was alive and Sasikala even changed her name to VK Sasikala [her maiden name] to keep herself in Jayalalithaa’s home. After her brief sojourn in wilderness between December 2011 [when Sasikala was chased out of Jaya’s residence] and April 2012, when the aide returned, reports had indicated Sasikala had no interests in politics or any trappings of power. ‘I am only Madam’s personal aide,’ Sasikala had been quoted as saying in a letter to the then CM. The term has now acquired a different spelling, meaning and significance. Sasikala seems to be Tamil Nadu’s political AIDS,” a police officer requesting anonymity said.

[2]

Operative excerpts from the relevant Wikipedia dossier:

As the day (26 January 1965) of switching over to Hindi as sole official language approached, the anti-Hindi movement gained momentum in Madras State with increased support from college students. On 25 January, a full-scale riot broke out in the southern city of Madurai, sparked off by a minor altercation between agitating students and Congress party members. The riots spread all over Madras State, continued unabated for the next two months, and were marked by acts of violence, arson, looting, police firing and lathi charges. The Congress Government of the Madras State, called in paramilitary forces to quell the agitation; their involvement resulted in the deaths of about seventy persons (by official estimates) including two policemen. To calm the situation, Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long as the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri’s assurance, as did the student agitation.

The agitations of 1965 led to major political changes in the state. The DMK won the 1967 assembly election and the Congress Party never managed to recapture power in the state since then. The Official Languages Act was eventually amended in 1967 by the Congress Government headed by Indira Gandhi to guarantee the indefinite use of Hindi and English as official languages. This effectively ensured the current "virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism" of the Indian Republic. There were also two similar (but smaller) agitations in 1968 and 1986 which had varying degrees of success.

[3]

Operative excerpts from an article carried in a prominent website:

The protest is no longer, and perhaps never was, only about Jallikkattu. It has, however, become the rallying point for disgruntlement of the Tamil people, from Tamil Eelam to Cauvery River water-sharing, helped by the general discontent over demonetisation.

The slogans raised, the posters displayed and the beach-side conversations are testimony to the different issues being raised in Tamil Nadu. And couched in the calls for justice is victimhood, the eternal lament of being a Tamil and ‘Indian government’ never caring for it.

Several posters of slain LTTE chief Prabhakaran were also seen at the protests. All these issues tie up, and that is why there is such mass outpouring, says 36-year-old Selvakumar, a professor. “It may not be relevant today, but this shows why so many people are out here. Tamilians and our issues are never taken seriously,” he says.

A group of ten boys from the near fishing hamlets have also come. Dressed in black, and some sporting a fish-shaped gold locket on their necks, they are busy patching together an effigy to burn it. “You know how many Tamil fishermen are killed or arrested by Sri Lanka every month?” one of them asks angrily.

[4]

Operative excerpts by Deccan Chronicle columnist Charu Nivedita

“Trisha should be stripped naked and be chased on the road”.

This is just another abuse faced by Kollywood actor Trisha Krishnan, who left the shooting venue after an angry mob of Jallikkattu supporters protested against her for endorsing PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A complete list of all these expletives can be found on Facebook that has been used against the actor.

LTTE’s Prabhakaran was the proud symbol of Tamil ethnic identity [also proudly displayed in posters at the protest]. Many Tamil film directors are still claiming Prabhakaran as their leader, and this is the critical background with which the Jallikkattu protest has to be viewed.

Jallikkattu protests and connected rage are based on racial feelings.

Though the struggle is pointed towards Tamil identity, a major part of the youths cannot write in Tamil. Tamil is just a spoken language here and that is an irony.