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Jayalalithaa being flown to London for treatment
View(s):Dateline Chennai
By Kumar Chellappan
A chief minister who can not sign on official files because of his or her poor health is a matter of serious concern for the people. Whether it be the chief minister or any member in the council of ministers, he or she should be replaced immediately with a person capable of thinking and acting independently.
Tamil Nadu, a State which has a population of 78 million people, is facing a peculiar situation since September 22 when Chief Minister Jayaraman Jayalalithaa, who is also the General Secretary of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), was admitted to a hospital in Chennai. A press release issued by Apollo Hospital the next day said Jayalalithaa was suffering from fever and dehydration and her condition was stable.
It is more than a month since Jayalalithaa was admitted to the hospital. The only information about Jayalalithaa’s health from the hospital since then are the vaguely worded releases issued by the chief operating officer of the Apollo Hospital from time to time stating that she was responding to treatment. The hospital authorities are silent about her medical and physical condition.
A patient who was admitted to the hospital due to fever and dehydration is treated by an expert team of doctors who were summoned from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and an intensivist consultant from London who was specially flown in from Britain. This shows that Jayalalithaa’s health is in a bad condition and she is not normal. What adds to the mystery is that nobody other than Sasikala Natarajan, the live-in-partner of Jayalalithaa in her Poes Garden residence has access to the ward where the Chief Minister is undergoing treatment. Jayalalithaa has no blood relation staying with her and even her niece, a journalist herself, was not allowed inside the hospital by the people who have surrounded the chief minister.
The seriousness of the situation could be understood from the fact that a Chennai based newspaper which usually does not attack anybody other than Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), came out on Saturday with a news that the three AIADMK candidates contesting the November 19 by-election from the assembly constituencies submitted to the Election Commission the authorisation forms which bear the left thump impression of Jayalalithaa, the party’s boss. According to Election Commission of India rules, the candidates would be allotted party symbols only if they submit letters signed by the party chief.
The form bears the testimony of a government medical doctor who has certified that “since the signatory has undergone tracheostomy recently and has an inflamed right hand she is temporarily unable to affix her signature. Hence she has affixed her left thumb impression on her own in my presence,” said Prof Dr. P. Balaji, a senior doctor of Madras Medical College who has attested the thumb impression.
It is also surprising to note that the Tamil Nadu Government or the hospital has not issued any picture of the hospitalised Jayalalithaa, whom they claim is in the best of health. The media in Chennai and Tamil Nadu are reluctant to publish anything which is unpalatable to the State government as more than sixty criminal defamation cases have been filed against media persons and individuals for publishing or posting unsubstantiated news about Jayalalithaa’s health condition.
The fear among the people of the State is that extra constitutional authorities are wielding power in Tamil Nadu. Meanwhile, political observers based in Chennai have started speculating about the post-Jayalalithaa scenario in Tamil Nadu. It is interesting to note that no person has been designated as number two in the AIADMK to oversee the affairs of the party in Jayalalithaa’s absence.
As on Saturday evening, the grapevine is that Jayalalithaa may be taken to London for advanced treatment as per the recommendations of Dr. Richard Beale, the British specialist who was flown in to treat her. The Chief Minister may proceed to London in a chartered flight by the second week of November, according to sources in intelligence wings. This need not be the final word on the issue since the hospital authorities are yet to make any announcement about the status of Jayalalithaa’s health.