Chennai: Nearly six years have passed since her death after 75-day hospitalisation, but the ghost of Jayalalithaa continues to haunt late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's confidante VK Sasikala and OPS, trusted as a steadfast loyalist. The Commission probing the mystery surrounding her demise, has indicted Sasikala for keeping the treatment at Apollo Hospitals here under a wrap of secrecy and preventing angio or surgery possibly with an ulterior motive.
Acting swiftly, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to initiate action against Sasikala and seven others after securing expert legal opinion. A Government Order said the summary of the commission's report had been forwarded to the Health Department for further necessary action.
The 480-page voluminous report of the panel, tabled in the Tamil Nadu Assembly on Tuesday, details how Sasikala took every decision regarding the treatment besides raising question as to whether the death of the late AIADMK supremo was delayed by more than a day. Besides her, others under cloud for preventing Jayalalithaa from taking treatment abroad are former Chief Secretary Rama Mohan Rao, who has retired from service and former Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan.
Apart from those above, Sasikala's relative and Jayalalithaa's personal doctor KS Sivakumar, former Health Minister C Vijayabhaskar and Apollo Doctors, YVC Reddy and Dr Babu Abraham, who treated the late Chief Minister all through, would be proceeded against.
In the panel's view, Sasikala was responsible for the non-transparent medical treatment. Placing the needle of suspicion on her, the report says it was her relatives who brought Dr Samin Sharma from the US for diagnosing Jayalalithaa's condition, though no record exists on that. While Dr Sharma and Dr Richard Beale from the UK have suggested angio/surgery, it was not carried out. Further, it was the extended family of Sasikala which occupied a hospital floor controlling access to both Jayalalithaa and the doctors. Even the doctors of the medical team formed by the Tamil Nadu government had not examined Jayalalithaa and were kept away.
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On the exact date of Jayalalithaa's death, the commission recorded the deposition of Dr Sudha Seshaiyan, Vice Chancellor of Dr MGR Medical University, who carried out the embalming of the body. “When embalming started at 11.30 pm on the request of the OA of late CM, KT Karthikeyan, she found that the late CM would have passed away 10 to 15 hours prior to the time of embalming,” the report says.
Further, it says “The time of death of the late CM assumes significance and it has far-reaching consequences. There is an official description of time of death fixing it at 5.12.2016, at 11.30 pm. There is gross variation with the version of the paramedical personnel who physically attended on the late CM, when she was sinking in her hospital bed. The unequivocal and unambiguous version of the nurses, technicians and duty doctors who were monitoring the health status of the late CM, is that she suffered a cardiac failure before 3.50 pm on 4.12.2016.”
Taking strong exception to the press meet of Pratap Reddy on 12.11.2016, wherein he claimed “Jayalalithaa's infection was fully under control and she could go after discharge wherever she likes. Her discharge depends upon her decision. There is no fixed date. What is required is recuperation.” This was contrary to what the medical records reveal, it said, regretting “it is also shocking that the head of such a world-renowned hospital had made such an irresponsible statement to the media. Was there any pressure upon him to make such a false statement?...The motive behind such a statement is also not known.”
Taking the conspiracy theory published in a magazine that Sasikala's extended family had held a conclave to decide the next Chief Minister if Jayalalithaa was convicted in the wealth case, the commission maintains that it was the reason for her expulsion from the Poes Garden residence of Jayalalithaa in November 2011. Though she was readmitted a year later, the panel says, there was lack of trust. From here, it proceeds to build a case against Sasikala.
“The Commission, considering the above aspects, is constrained to come to no other conclusion, but to indict R1 (Sasikala).” Debunking OPS, the commission has only this to say, “even though he was informed, he along with other ministers just kept quiet and remained silent. After his position (as CM) was snatched away... he comes forward with the episode of 'Dharmaytham'. Considering the present climate, he now states that there is no suspicion and it is only rumours … which necessitated the appointment of the commission.
“The report could not have come at a worst time when a politically isolated OPS is making amends with Sasikala to resurrect their political fortunes,” says political analyst Raveendran Duraisamy.
