CHENNAI: At least 300 personnel have been posted at the MGR-Jayalalithaa memorial on the Marina Promenade, officially closed for two weeks for ‘maintenance,’ to prevent a possible visit by Sasikala.
Even Jayalalithaa’s houseturned-memorial in Poes Garden has turned a fortress, with 100 police personnel guarding the space outside Veda Nilayam and the Binny Road-Dr Radhakrishnan Salai intersection leading towards it.
About 500 men and women in khakhi have been deployed along high-security Greenways Road, which has residences of the chief minister and other ministers and where a large number of posters hailing Sasikala as ‘Rajamatha’ have sprung up.
While 100 personnel are outside the AIADMK headquarters on Avvai Shanmugham Salai in Royapettah, the police top brass are also worried about the security arrangements that would be required at the residence of Dr Krishnapriya, the elder daughter of J Ilavarsi, on North Usman Road where Sasikala is expected to stay. Her bungalow opposite Veda Nilayam is under construction.
While police believe Sasikala will reach Chennai on Monday, some AMMK workers claimed she would arrive only on February 11 and that they plan to welcome her at 1,000 locations along the route from Bengaluru.
Police said they would allow AMMK workers to stand on the roadside to welcome Sasikala if proper permission was sought, but a senior officer said no petition had been received in this regard so far.
Sasikala, who was released from the Parapanna Agrahara prison in Bengaluru on January 27, was admitted to the Victoria hospital in that city for Covid treatment before being discharged four days later. She then moved into a luxury hotel.
The aide of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa had spent four years at the prison in Bengaluru after being convicted in a disproportionate assets case.