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Vaiko gets 1 year prison term, Rs. 10,000 fine for causing disaffection towards Indian Govt.
CHENNAI: A special court in Chennai for elected representatives on Friday sentenced LTTE apologist Vayapuri Gopalasamy, known more as Vaiko, to a prison term of one year and a fine of Rs 10,000 for a hate speech he delivered on July 15, 2009 in the aftermath of the northern separatist insurgency in Sri Lanka.
The case, registered by the then Tamil Nadu Government headed by M. Karunanidhi of the DMK had stated that Vaiko delivered a provocative speech with the intention to cause hatred , contempt and disaffection towards the Government.
While releasing the book “I accuse”, a compilation of letters he wrote to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh charging the Sri Lankan government for its offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) , Vaiko asked the Tamil youth to wage a war against the governments at the State and Centre.
He alleged that the then UPA Government at the Centre led by Manmohan Singh had betrayed the Tamils by aiding the Sri Lankan Government to commit genocide against the LTTE in the final stages of the civil war. Since Vaiko was against the DMK at that time for political reasons, the Karunanidhi government slapped charges of sedition against him under Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code dealing with sedition.
Though Vaiko is a media celebrity in Tamil Nadu, he has no constituency of his own in the State. He was a member of the Indian Parliament four times. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) in 1978 as a DMK candidate and was a member of the House till 1996. In 1994 he was expelled from the DMK by the then party chief Karunanidhi to facilitate the elevation of the latter’s son Stalin as the heir apparent.
Vaiko launched the Marumalarchi DMK and entered into an alliance with the AIADMK . He was elected to the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Indian Parliament ) in 1998 with the support of Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK. The following year, he patched up with Karunanidhi who supported him to get elected as MP in the 1999 mid-term election. He had won all the elections he contested only because of the support extended by the DMK or the AIADMK.
In Parliament he was known as the Tiger and the Indian face of the LTTE. J Shanti, the judge who convicted him on Friday stated in her verdict that though the crime committed by Vaiko was of serious nature and commanded a severe punishment, she was awarding a light sentence in the backdrop of his plea for lenient punishment because of his age and health. The court room witnessed a big drama as Vaiko rushed to the podium and questioned the judge about her comments. What upset Vaiko was the fear that the verdict would derail his dreams of getting elected to Parliament. The Indian rules state that a convicted person is not eligible to contest the election of the quantum of sentence is two or more years. Vaiko had a hair-width escape from the law as his conviction is only for one year. The court also suspended the sentence for one month so that Vaiko could approach the Supreme Court for relief.
Though his party MDMK has no members in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, the DMK as an act of charity has nominated him to Parliament with the support of party MLAs.
This is not the first encounter Vaiko has had with the country’s laws. In 2002, he was arrested by the then Jayalalithaa government under the Prevention of Terrorism Act for making pro-LTTE speeches and he was jailed for 20 months.
Vaiko has tried all the tricks in the book to resuscitate his political career. He had aligned with the AIADMK, the DMK, the Communists and the BJP since 1996 citing various reasons. In the 2014 Lok sabha election he had campaigned actively for Narendra Modi only to end the alliance the day the latter was sworn in as Prime Minister. The reason: Modi had invited the then Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa for the swearing in ceremony.
Gopalasamy (75) a self proclaimed rationalist who changed his name to Vaiko because of astrological reasons continues to be the enfant terrible of Tamil Nadu’s politics swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other.