While inaugurating the ‘Amma Clinic’ Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami had said that only the people of the state are true heirs of the legacy of J Jayalalithaa. But on Tuesday, the legacy battle began, once again with one episode playing out at Marina Beach in Chennai and the other, outside Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru.
The upcoming election is one of many firsts for Tamil Nadu. For the AIADMK, it is the first they will face without a towering personality leading them. The rivalry in AIADMK to be the political heir of Jayalalithaa had started just a few days after her death. She had been careful to not name anyone as her successor. With Sasikala’s conviction and being locked away in Parappana Agrahara jail in Bengaluru for four years, EPS and OPS managed a truce with an understanding that neither, by themselves can lead the party and the government and would require the other’s support.
Four years later, when Sasikala is expected to return to Chennai, even after EPS and OPS consolidating power in the party and the government, nobody can risk writing Sasikala off. She had been accused of being a shadow CM especially in the last months of Jayalalithaa’s life when many believed that with Jayalalithaa’s health being fragile, Sasikala had been instructing the ministers and bureaucracy. With these connections and the experience, even at this stage, the AIADMK leadership fear that she could attempt a coup, the possible reason that made EPS categorically rule out Sasikala’s re-entry into the AIADMK post her release.
And as the Rs 80-crore memorial complex honouring Jayalalithaa was unveiled on the same day that Sasikala was expected to be released from jail, AIADMK leaders once again made emotional invocations to ‘Amma’, pledging to go back to the people and rule once again in her name. In a bid to position them as the political heirs of Jayalalithaa --to the party cadre and to leaders alike--EPS and OPS ensured their names are, literally, carved in stone at the memorial.
And in Bengaluru, as the wait for Sasikala to walk out became a little longer, owing to COVID-19, her nephew TTV Dhinakaran, while saying he does not want to talk about politics still added, “Chinamma is coming back, we will form Amma’s government in Tamil Nadu”. His only political statement making it clear that both he and his aunt will once again try to regain their claim on the legacy of Jayalalithaa, the loss of political fortunes in the last four years notwithstanding. The supporters who had gathered, albeit much smaller in size, tried to recreate the scenes of when Jayalalithaa had been released from jail in 2014.