A delegation of the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam met Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Tuesday to discuss a burglary and murder that took place in 2017 at former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s estate in Kodanadu in Nilgiris district, PTI reported.
A delegation led by deputy coordinators KP Munusamy and R Vaithilingam met the governor a day after Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President and Leader of the Opposition MK Stalin met Purohit, requesting a Special Investigation Team to investigate the alleged role of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in the theft, reported The Times of India.
The DMK demanded an inquiry after a video emerged in which two suspects involved in the incident claimed Palaniswami was behind the burglary. KV Sayan and Valayar Manoj were arrested on Sunday.
In April 2017, a security guard at the estate was murdered, and cash and documents went missing, four months after Jayalalithaa’s death. Two months later, an accountant working at the estate was found dead at his house in Kotagiri.
Munusamy said the DMK was apprehensive about being defeated in the Lok Sabha elections and was trying to discredit the chief minister and the ruling party’s good governance. “We told the governor that it was the DMK’s attempt to seek political mileage,” Munusamy told reporters after the meeting. He said the allegations against the chief minister were grave and it was the party’s duty to respond to the governor.
Palaniswami has denied links to case. The Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, founded by former AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) have sought inquiries into the case, while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam have demanded the chief minister’s resignation.
What the suspects claim
In the video, Sayan claimed that Jayalalithaa’s former driver Kanakaraj had said that Palaniswami had asked him to hire people from outside thestate to steal Rs 2,000 crore and some documents from the estate and to hand it over to him.
Later, Kanakaraj was killed in a road accident in Salem. Four more persons connected with the robbery died soon after the incident, unidentified officials from the Coimbatore jail told Narada News.
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