AIADMK Rajya Sabha MP Sasikala Pushpa could easily go down in her party's history as being the only leader to have openly defied their chief J Jayalalithaa.

In the Rajya Sabha today, Sasikala Pushpa revealed that the party leadership had in a manner of speaking, 'slapped her' and she had not been able to meet her children or her husband. She also claimed that her life was in danger from the state government.

This statement has evoked huge political controversy with the Congress leadership.

Ghulam Nabi Azad and other senior Congress MPs in the Rajya Sabha wanted Sasikala Pushpa to be allowed to speak more so that inside information of the party is revealed.

But knowing the political ramifications, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu stood up and said protection would be given to the MP if she approached the Rajya Sabha chairperson. He added that it was a personal matter between two MPs - Sasikala Pushpa and DMK MP Tiruchi Siva -- and the Rajya Sabha could not get involved.

To this Pushpa stoutly denied that it was a personal affair and said that while Tiruchi Siva was a gentleman, she repeated that her life was in danger.


The AIADMK is a one rule-one leadership party, but Sasikala Pushpa has broken the hold iron-hold Jayalalithaa has on the party when Pushpa refused to resign from the Rajya Sabha as she has another four years left.

In the past, many senior leaders in the AIADMK feel that RK Kumar who was union minister of state for revenue in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee  government was asked to resign because he could not help in closing Jayalalithaa's income tax matters. After Kumar, Kadambur Janardhanan was brought in as Union Minister, but he too could not help Jaya in her income tax cases. SImilarly, MP TTV Dinakaran had become an untouchable for AIADMK MPs for three years after he fell out of favour with Jaya.

None of them fought the dictat to leave the party.

But Sasikala Pushpa stood her ground and by doing so is fighting Jayalalithaa's authority and the AIADMK its grip over its MPs.

Sources tell us that a communication gap between Jayalalitha and AIADMK MPs has brought about the Pushpa episode.

The 49 AIADMK MPs in the Rajya Sabha have different views on the issue. The Deputy Speaker of the RS, M Thambidurai is the leader of both houses of parliament an he has been conveying real stories about the conduct and lifestyle of the AIADMK MPs to the leadership. And that, dear reader, is the main reason for such a political mishap.

The real danger of the Pushpa episode is that it may be a threat to the AIADMK leadership and its authority.  First,  it failed to get her resignation, and second, she exposed the AIADMK leadership in the full glare of 250 Rajya Sabha MPs.

The question to be asked then is, how did Jayalalitha's authority get eroded?


-- R Rajagopalan/Rediff.com.


Read more on what Sasikala Pushpa said in Parliament today.