‘OPS had resigned voluntarily’

Former interim common secretary of the AIADMK, V.K. Sasikala, on Tuesday stated the celebration coordinator, O. Panneerselvam, had resigned “voluntarily” as Chief Minister in February 2017.

“Had he not done that, I would have retained him [as CM],” she stated, in response to observations of her supporter, Sivanesan of Theni, who was heard telling her that “If Ayya [Mr. Panneerselvam] had not quit then, he would even have prevented you from undertaking vanavasam [her going to a Bengaluru jail to serve a four-year-long sentence].”

An audio clip of the tele dialog between Ms. Sasikala and Mr. Sivanesan was launched by her workplace. It was one among 9 audio clips that had been made accessible to the media throughout the day.

[On February 7, 2017, Mr. Panneerselvam, a few days after he had announced his decision to step down from the post and proposed Ms. Sasikala as leader of the AIADMK Legislature party, had told reporters that he was “compelled” to quit.]

In her dialog , Ms. Sasikala, referring to the AIADMK management expelling a number of of its members on Monday for having spoken to her, puzzled what was “the point in going on sacking the party workers” and whether or not this was the best way to deal with these “who have worked for the party sincerely”. In one other dialog, she expressed shock over the expulsion of V. Pugazhendhi, spokesperson of the celebration.

During telephonic talks with many others, she stated she had determined to “step aside” from politics in March as “they [alluding to the camp of former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami] had felt that they could accomplish victory in the Assembly election on their own.”

She likened the current scenario to the one after the dying of the celebration founder M.G. Ramachandran in December 1987 when the cadres of the celebration, in keeping with her, had been utterly behind Jayalalithaa and the remaining functioned as a separate bloc [supporting Janaki Ramachandran].