Locked In A Garden Of Woes

The nephew-niece duo slavers over them and Sasikala has designs, but the state controls Jayalalitha’s properties.

- G.C. Shekhar

For nearly four decades, 36 Poes Garden remained one of the most important addresses in Chennai— an unavoidable hub of political activity visited by the country’s top political leaders; a power centre from where its two women residents determined the fate of Tamil Nadu and its politics. Till fate and law intervened. One of the two protagonists—Jayalalitha—is dead while her friend Sasikala is counting her days in a Bangalore prison.

Sasikala is pinning her hopes on a pre­ mature release and is aiming to take back control of Poes Garden and other proper­ ties that the two had shared. There are only two obstacles—the trial court verdict that had confiscated most of their proper­ ties after terming them illicit. Then, there are two of Jayalalitha’s relatives.

The latest challenge has come from Deepak and Deepa, the nephew and niece of Jayalalitha, claiming to be the only legal heirs of their aunt and thus entitled to inherit the palatial bungalow and other properties in her name. The two had pet itioned the Madras High Court against the move of the Edappadi Palaniswami government to convert Poes Garden into a memorial for the dead leader and asked the bungalow be handed over to them. Of the two, Deepa, tried to exploit her resemblance to her late aunt for a brief political foray, only to realise that politics is not all about likenesses and called it quits soon.

The high court has asked why the two— children of Jayalalitha’s elder brother Jayakumar—should not be declared as class two legal heirs so they can adminis­ter Poes Garden and other properties of Jayalalitha. The two judges even sug­gested that they distribute part of the wealth, which the siblings claim to be over Rs 1,000 crore, for the needy.