A week after getting released from the Parappana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, as V.K. Sasikala set out for Chennai on Monday morning, the Tamil Nadu police and the ruling AIADMK stepped into swift action.
The AIADMK leader and close aide of former chief minister Jayalalithaa, Sasikala's arrival in Chennai is expected to turn the existing political equations in poll-bound Tamil Nadu. The ruling AIADMK has lodged two police complaints against her saying she is barred from using the AIADMK party flag and that her supporters have planned to create law and order problem. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palanisami, once handpicked by her, has chosen to step up his election campaign and make a slew of announcements.
As the AIADMK camp seemingly looked rattled, Sasikala is yet to open up on her political plans. Clad in a green sari, with a grey-coloured mask covering her face, Sasikala set out from Bengaluru to Chennai after paying floral tribute to Jayalalithaa. Along with her was her nephew and AMMK founder leader TTV Dhinakaran. Her supporters and well wishers in the AIADMK have planned to give her a rousing welcome. Huge posters and banners have been erected in several places from near JuJuVadi to Chennai.
The Tamil Nadu police had said that there cannot be more than five cars in her convoy and she should not use the party flag on her car. Sasikala had set out from Bengaluru in Jayalalithaa's Toyota Land Cruiser. The Tamil Nadu police stopped her car at the Hosur border and served a notice against using the AIADMK flag. But Sasikala got out of the car, took the notice and again set out in the same car bearing the party flag.
Police sources say that she will be stopped at the next point and asked to remove the flag, if she fails to remove it. On the other hand, the ruling AIADMK led by Palanisami had already shut the Jayalalithaa memorial, barricaded its party office on Avvai Shanmugam Salai in Chennai with heavy police deployment and placed over 25 CCTV cameras around it and Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence Veda Nilayam which was also turned into a memorial recently.
Earlier on Sunday, the Chennai collectorate issued orders to confiscate the properties of Sasikala's kin J. Ilavarasi and V.N. Sudhakaran, in the Disproportionate Assets case.
