Sasikala wants to mend fences with Jayalalitha

Three months after being expelled from the AIADMK, party supremo J Jayalalitha’s estranged friend V K Sasikala on Wednesday sought to mend fences with the former, swearing that she had “severed all ties with all those who have betrayed Amma.”

Sasikala along with over 18 of her close relatives, including husband M Natarajan, were shown the door by the party general secretary on December 19 last, in what was termed a  bold move to rid the party of “extra constitutional centres of power.”

However, a rapprochement between Sasikala and Jayalalitha is now an imminent possibility, as the former sent a signed statement to all newspaper offices in Chennai on Wednesday, taking political circles by surprise. In her statement, wherein she endearingly refers to Jayalalitha as “Akka (elder sister),”  Sasikala said she had cut off completely from all her relatives and friends who had taken “undue advantage of her proximity to the party leader and misused my name to create confusion and bring discredit to the party, even to the point of conspiring against the leader.”

Referring to her long friendship with Jayalalitha since she came to first know her in 1984 and subsequently moved into Jayalalitha’s residence in 1988, Sasikala said as she was mostly confined to the Poes Garden residence, “helping my sister in her various tasks”, she was unaware of all the “machinations and undesirable activities” that took place behind her back.