National

Amma's Avalanche

Within a fortnight of her taking over, Jayalalitha goes on the rampage with a spate of cases against 'foes'

Advertisement

Amma's Avalanche
info_icon
  • On May 27, Veerasamy's brother, N. Devarajan, was arrested for allegedly trying to extort commission from Jagadeesh, a Bangalore-based industrialist. Jagadeesh filed a complaint with the city police that he got the contract to remove scrap from the Madras Export Processing Zone during the dmk regime and that Devarajan had threatened him if he did not pay a commission of Rs 400 per tonne of the scrap removed.

  • B. Ranganathan, Puraswakkam mla and the right-hand man of P. Chidambaram, and his aide Gowri Shankar were arrested on May 30 for allegedly demanding money from an industrialist. Both of them have now been remanded to custody and packed off to the Chennai central jail.

  • Advertisement

  • Shortly after midnight on May 28, a Peravallur club in which Ranganathan is a partner was raided for being kept open beyond the legally stipulated time of 11 pm under the city police Act. Ranganthan's partner, Thomas Selvaraj, was arrested.

  • The same day, S. Rathinavelu, a local industrialist and the son of a former judge, filed a complaint with the Anna Nagar police alleging that Ranganathan had demanded Rs 3 lakh for election expenses on May 7. It further claimed that Gowri Shankar had made a similar demand at knife point on May 2. Ranganathan is now in the Chennai Central Jail as a remand prisoner, charged with a gamut of offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

    But the most ominous of them all is Amma's decision to revive cases against Karunanidhi on the basis of the Sarkaria Commission findings which indicted him and his cabinet colleagues on 14 counts of corruption charges during the emergency. Jayalalitha has been trying to get the Centre to direct the cbi to revive the cases. Even a petition to this effect was given to Vajpayee when the aiadmk was a part of the bjp-led government. But Vajpayee did not act on it.

    But the party denies that all this is vendetta. On June 1, during her reply to the debate in the assembly on the motion of thanks to the governor's address, Jayalalitha said: "When the dmk came to power, they used every possible means to foist cases almost every day against me and my loyal aiadmk members. I was humiliated, tormented, sent to jail and in every possible manner prevented from performing my public service. But we have great faith in democratic norms. We won't act like the dmk did." State education minister S. Thambidurai voices similar sentiments: "There's no political vendetta involved. They are all plain law and order matters." But still, the aiadmk cadres are upbeat by the turn of events and are hoping for bigger things to come. Says one senior party leader: "We've suffered for five years. Puratchi Thalaivi was humiliated, sent to jail, even made to eat jail regulation food. We want to see the same things happen to Karunanidhi. Only that will satisfy us." Adding his bit is Chennai metropolitan police commissioner R. Muthukaruppan. Says he: "Where is the question of political motivation? These are not cases filed by political parties. We are only acting to put down acts of rowdyism with an iron hand."

    But the dmk is convinced that it is nothing but vendetta. Laments Ilamvazhuthi: "The new regime is filing all these cases and making arrests only to destroy the Opposition. I won't be surprised if in the next few weeks you see more arrests." Thuglak editor and Rajya Sabha member Cho S. Ramaswamy, not too long ago a Karunanidhi supporter, is more circumspect: "I will not jump to such conclusions. It's only some cases that have come up now. Let's wait and see what happens further." In Tamil Nadu's deadly adversarial politics, after all, anything is possible.
  • Advertisement

    Tags

      Advertisement

      Advertisement

      Advertisement

      Advertisement

      Advertisement

      Advertisement