Speculation about the release of V.K. Sasikala, aide of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and AIADMK’s former interim general secretary, ahead of the end of her term from a Bengaluru jail prompted two senior Ministers to make divergent statements on Friday.
Responding to a question whether the AIADMK and the State government would be handed over to Sasikala in the event of her release, O.S. Manian, Handlooms Minister and the party’s Nagapattinam district secretary, answered: “I am an ordinary district secretary. It is for the leadership to decide. You will have to pose this question to the leadership. It would also be in the fitness of things to raise it with the leadership.”
He was interacting with journalists after laying the foundation for a building to be constructed at a cost of ₹60 lakh at the Seruthur Government High School in Nagapattinam district.
Hours later in Chennai, D. Jayakumar, Fisheries Minister and the party’s organisation secretary, termed Mr. Manian’s view personal and said what mattered was the party’s position. The Minister, regarded as the spokesperson of the government, said: “What we decided yesterday [in April 2017] holds good today and will remain so even tomorrow. The decision is this: the party and the government will run without Sasikala and her family. And that is our aim, too.”
Talking to reporters after attending a function to mark the National Fish Farmers' Day at the Directorate of Fisheries in Nandanam, he recalled that he had conveyed the party’s decision to the media in 2017 too.
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