Two days after being the central point of a high drama that unfolded in front of Jayalalithaa's 'Veda Nilayam' at Poes Garden in Chennai on Sunday, Deepa Jayakumar said her fight was not just for the residence of the late chief minister, but also for the legacy of the AIADMK.
Surprisingly at least 52,000 affidavits have been filed with the Election Commission of India in favour of her MGR Amma Deepa Peravai (MADP), claiming the two-leaves symbol. The symbol was frozen in March this year when former chief minister O. Panneerselvam rebelled against party chief V.K.Sasikala and formed his own faction.
The two factions led by Panneerselvam and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisamy have already been fighting it out in Delhi staking claim for the symbol. While the OPS faction (AIADMK Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) had filed several thousand affidavits, the EPS faction (AIADMK-Amma), which is known to be backed by Sasikala, had filed a few lakh affidavits in their favour.
The symbol war had turned murkier when AIADMK-Amma deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran was arrested by the Delhi Crime Branch police and later let out on bail for allegedly trying to bribe the ECI officials to get the two-leaves symbol for his faction.
Now Deepa’s entry into the fray has further muddied the troubled waters. Known to the outside world as Jayalalithaa’s niece, Deepa’s MADP on Tuesday submitted around 52,000 affidavits. It was submitted by advocate Pasumpon Pandiyan who is associated with the outfit.
In a letter to the ECI, Deepa has said that she is leading one of the factions of the AIADMK wing. “I am also leading one of the factions of the AIADMK and also heading a forum in the name of MGR Amma Deepa Peravai for coordianation with our political wing of AIADMK described by our cadre as AIADMK J. Deepa wing,” she said in her letter. Reportedly, she has also told the ECI that she has the backing of more than one lakh cadres in the party and demanded that the ECI conduct fresh elections for the post of the party general secretary.
However, Deepa is not even a basic member of the AIADMK and she had never taken part in any of the party meetings unlike Sasikala or others in the party. She is reportedly facing a credibility challenge among the people and in the political circles after the incident on Sunday when she was allegedly heckled by party workers while trying to enter the late chief minister's residence along with her husband K. Madhavan and her aide Raja. Deepa, who appeared flustered, later accused her brother Deepak of conspiring with Sasikala against her.
Since the day she launched her forum, Deepa has not been looked at as a prominent player in the state politics. Her contest in the RK Nagar elections, though her supporters claimed it to be a tough fight to the other candidates, was only ridiculed by the other two factions of the AIADMK. In another major setback, her husband K. Madhavan, who was with her in launching the forum, went to the extent of launching his own political forum just to oppose his wife.
The two-leaves trigger
Winning or losing in the AIADMK is, as always, associated with ‘two-leaves’. The day when MGR walked out of the DMK and formed his own party, he decided that his party symbol should denote victory and always stay afresh in the minds of the people. This was how the two-leaves symbol came into presence. Not just the AIADMK cadres, but even to the people of the state, two-leaves had always been MGR’s symbol, the matinee idol who was always a ‘good gentle man’ in his films. It was the two-leaves symbol that won him three consecutive elections and helped him occupy the Fort St. George, Tamil Nadu’s seat of power, for over 13 years.
When MGR died and the party split into J and Ja factions under Jayalalithaa and MGR’s wife Janaki respectively, the two-leaves symbol was frozen by the ECI. Jayalalithaa in 1989, though she won under the Cock symbol, got back the two-leaves symbol after fighting for two years in the ECI. With this, she won as chief minister in 1991 for the first time, with a thumping majority. More than all this, two leaves is the pride of every AIADMK cadre in the state. And winning it by fighting in the ECI is like winning the hearts of more than one crore cadre in the party.
