Questions are buzzing around in Left circles. Why, despite his letters which clearly spelled out his intention to commit suicide, was nothing done to pre-empt it? By the party -- which stripped him of his posts on February 6 but kept it hush-hush as if acknowledging it had over-reacted. By his wife Saraswathi who only lodged a missing person complaint three days after he disappeared (incidentally, her complaint to the party had led to him being dumped despite his service to it for decades after giving up his cushy RBI job). By the police who informed nobody despite recovering a body from the Porur lake on February 13, two days after he went missing?
The good, the bad and the ugly
That AIADMK chief Jayalalitha is fighting great odds is no secret after the DMK or its allies have won the last 10 by-elections. But the lack of pomp and show – remember some years ago when the AIADMK chief was CM, a minister wore a grass skirt and rolled around a temple for Jaya’s longevity? – at the former CM’s 62nd birthday on February 24 is a barometer of her political standing. Granted she asked her cadres not to go overboard, but the point to note is that they did not. There were some poojas, some 2,007 (the digits add up to Jayalalithaa’s lucky number nine) women carried pots of milk from one temple to another in Vadapalani, a former minister O Paneerselvam pulled a silver chariot at the Kalkiambal temple where there were also abhisekhams. But the cadre also carried out poor- feeding and blood donations. At the party office, senior leaders cut a 62 kg cake which was quite impressive and indicated there are some leaders in Amma’s corner who do not take her literally and assume she does not mean what she says. And that’s a good thing because the AIADMK is going to be fighting in a four cornered contest – the others are the DMK, PMK and Vijaykanth’s DMDK – in the twice postponed bypoll in Pennagaram constituency on March 27. With it being the last by-election before the assembly polls, all parties have to prove their winnability. So, who’ll win? No prizes for guessing.