Palaniswami to throw open Jayalalithaa's memorial the day Sasikala comes out of jail

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is making yet another effort to claim the legacy of late AIADMK veteran J Jayalalithaa. He will inaugurate a grand memorial built for Jayalalithaa at her resting place on the Marina Beach here on January 27, the day his former boss V K Sasikala is expected to walk out of the Parappana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru.

It was Sasikala who hand-picked Palaniswami as the Chief Minister in February 2017 before she left for Bengaluru to serve a four-year prison term in a disproportionate assets (DA) case. However, much water has flown down the bridge in the past four years and Palaniswami now does not want to cede any political space to Sasikala.

The choice of January 27 for throwing open the memorial built at a cost of Rs 58 crore by the Tamil Nadu government speaks volumes about the Chief Minister's efforts to claim Jayalalithaa's legacy. Sasikala is expected to be released on January 27, and by inaugurating the memorial the same day, Palaniswami is trying to send a clear message that he is firmly in the saddle.

Also Read | Sasikala to walk out of Parappana Agrahara jail on January 27?

The announcement of the opening of the memorial for Jayalalithaa was made by the government in the form of a press statement even as Palaniswami was in the national capital. The memorial, which will also have a museum and a knowledge park, is coming up behind the MGR memorial where Jayalalithaa was buried on December 6, 2016 according to Dravidian customs.

“The Chief Minister is clearly sending out a message to Sasikala. Firstly, he wants to convey that Sasikala's release is of no significance to him and the AIADMK and secondly he wants to prove that he is second to none in showing his loyalty to Jayalalithaa,” senior journalist R Bhagwan Singh said.

The government had in December appointed R Pandiarajan, who retired as Superintending Engineer, Public Works Department in April 2020, as Special Officer on contract basis to “monitor and coordinate the works in order to complete the project in a stipulated time.