CHENNAI (TIP): Sitting in Parappana Agrahara jail on Bengaluru’s outskirts, VK Sasikala has the mother of all battles on her hands: her party, on which she had had an unassailable sway for over three decades, is now intent on getting rid of her.

Apparently steered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is looking for a foothold in Tamil Nadu, the two factions of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (AIADMK) recently merged after an acrimonious period in the wake of party supremo J Jayalalithaa’s death last December. The BJP views Sasikala as having too much baggage.

But the 60-year-old still has some fight left in her, orchestrating her moves through her nephew, TTV Dinakaran. So 19 MLAs supporting him have met governor C Vidyasagar Rao to give him letters withdrawing their support to the Chief Minister. This potentially reduces the EPS–led government to a minority one.

When Jayalalithaa loyalist O Panneerselvam (OPS) made Sasikala’s exit from the party a condition for the merger, Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) said the party’s general council will soon be convened to remove her from the post of general secretary.

For Sasikala, the AIADMK has been as much part of her life, as Jayalalithaa herself was and, for over three decades, she was the go-to person for most AIADMK leaders. Observers, commenting on the developments, say that the BJP perhaps did not want Sasikala to become another Jayalalithaa.

“The BJP saw in Jayalalithaa’s death an opportunity and is clearly exerting control over the AIADMK. This would not have been possible [with] Sasikala becoming powerful. The fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Paneerselvam four times in a week before the merger establishes BJP’s role. When was meeting Modi so easy for a leader from Tamil Nadu?” asks senior journalist R Ramasubramaniam. Source: HT