Chennai: High drama prevailed outside the Poes Garden residence of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa on Wednesday after the Chennai police refused to allow a group of T.T.V. Dhinakaran’s supporters led by Perambur MLA P. Vetrivel to perform “some ritual” inside the bungalow.
The police asked them to head back following which they entered into a verbal duel. Vetrivel and former MLA V.P. Kalairajan argued with the police on why they are not being allowed inside the Poes Garden residence to perform “thithi” (ritual) for Jayalalithaa this month when they had performed it several months earlier.
The police told the leaders that they cannot be allowed inside the residence since the premises came under the scanner of the income-tax department very recently. I-T sleuths had conducted searches on last Friday in two rooms used by Jayalalithaa’s personal assistant P.S. Poonkundran and recovered six pen drives, a laptop, a desktop and a tablet computer.
Mr Vetrivel alleged the men in khaki were acting at the instructions of chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and deputy chief minister O. Panneerselvam. “Why are we not being allowed? We have been conducting the ritual every month and suddenly we are not being allowed now? This is the handiwork of this government,” Mr Vetrivel alleged.
Mr Vetrivel said they have conducting the ritual every month ever since Jayalalithaa passed away in December 2016. He said the TTV camp had no issues with the government converting the Poes Garden residence into a memorial for Jayalalithaa, but they cannot bar the entry of people at their “whims and fancies”. Speaking to reporters at the Chennai Airport, Mr Dhinakaran echoed the sentiments expressed by Vetrivel and accused the state government of giving an impression that the entire Poes Garden premises was sealed.
