SC verdict: Valentine's Day anticlimax for Sasikala in Tamil Nadu
Finally, it’s February 15, when the "mango people" (or aam aadmi) are getting back to work brushing off all the heart-shaped confetti that got stuck to them after a heady dose of Valentine's Day cocktails and dineouts.
And yet the biggest shocker came to all the "love-struck" AIADMK MLAs "locked up" in a luxury resort by their reverential Chinnamma (as VK Sasikala is addressed by party cadres), after the Supreme Court gave its verdict on February 14.
| Sasikala loyalist and strongman of Salem, Edappadi K Palaniswami, has been elected as the AIADMK legislative party leader. |
It was a unanimous judgment on a 21-year-old case of disproportionate assets, which also barred J Jayalalithaa's "friend and sister" Sasikala from holding public office for the next decade.
The two-judge Supreme Court bench "unhesitatingly" set aside the Karnataka High Court's judgment "erroneously" acquitting Jayalalithaa, Sasikala and two others in May 2015, and upheld the conviction of the trial court, which it found to be "flawless", crushing the mounting ambitions of Sasikala in the process.
The move triggered a rather quick turn of events where the party elected Sasikala loyalist and strongman of Salem, Edappadi K Palaniswami, as the leader of the legislature party even as O Panneerselvam turned rather vile causing a defection.
| In the case of a floor test in the Assembly, Palaniswami would lead the party and need to prove his majority against O Panneerselvam to form the government. |
Soon afterwards, Palaniswami, along with other senior leaders, visited governor C Vidyasagar Rao to stake claim for forming the government — perhaps making Sasikala the real queen behind the throne — which would in all likelihood will be challenged by Panneerselvam claiming that the process of electing Palaniswami was done under siege.
As neither faction appears to be in a position to command the required 118 for a simple majority so far, the fear of a divided Assembly where no faction may win a majority looms large — something that would eventually lead to a mid-term election in Tamil Nadu much to rival DMK's delight.
In the process, I reserve my heart-shaped balloon for the Supreme Court, which played the spoiler in the "love-struck" MLAs' lives and their week-long break, ending the "will-she won’t-she battle" with an anticlimax.
Also read: With Sasikala facing jail time, Tamil Nadu faces biggest political upheaval