In an overnight development former AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala announced her decision to step aside of politics and called for the return of the golden AIADMK rule of J Jayalalithaa.
The news of her decision started coming late on Wednesday night, but the real picture emerged early on Thursday morning.
In a two-page long statement she called upon the “true followers” of Jayalalithaa “to remain united, act wisely and work hard” during the Assembly election so that the DMK, “our common enemy and evil force, as identified by Amma (Jayalalithaa) does not return to power and the golden rule of Amma is established in Tamil Nadu.”
Stating that she had no political ambition she thanked all those who had shown affection and concern towards her.
Her nephew T T V Dhinakaran also said that she wanted the unification of workers of all factions to fight against the common enemy, DMK.
However, the ruling AIADMK is yet to officially react while the BJP, which wanted to bring truce between the two factions, welcomed her move.
But one of the AIADMK leader, Apsara Reddy, said that it was bound to happen as neither she nor her nephew had any space left in the party. Reddy said that it would be better for Sasikala to take care of her health.
Ruling out any scope of merger of Dhinakaran’s AMMK with the AIADMK Reddy said that there is no scope whatsoever for it as the nephew had done a lot of damage by misusing the name of Jayalalithaa and MGR. He had become irrelevant in Tamil Nadu, Reddy was quoted by India Today.
Independent political observers are of the view that it would be too early to say what would be the impact of Sasikala’s decision on the poll. But there are many Tamil Nadu watchers who see the BJP hand in prevailing upon Sasikala to stay away from politics ahead of the election.
It needs to be mentioned that on February 24 last, that is on the birthday of Jayalalithaa, Sasikala called upon everyone to join hands to ensure the defeat of DMK.
