The name of former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader VK Sasikala has been removed from the voters’ list, NDTV reported on Tuesday, quoting her legal counsel. Sasikala, a close aide of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister late J Jayalalithaa, will take legal action against officials responsible, her lawyer said.

All 234 seats of the Tamil Nadu Assembly went to polls on Tuesday. The results will be declared on May 2.

Sasikala’s supporters said that the names of the former AIADMK leader, her family members and workers living in Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden home in Chennai were deleted from the electoral rolls after the state government converted the premises into a memorial of the former chief minister, the Hindustan Times reported.

Advertisement

Sasikala’s lawyer N Raja Senthoor Pandian told PTI that he had apprised the chief electoral officer that no notice was sent to her before deleting her name and said that it was an “injustice”. However, the Election Commission official told Pandian that the deadline to make inclusions or deletions in the voters’ list had expired already.

“Just because the government took over the property, how can they delete the names without issuing any notice to us?” Pandian asked, according to the Hindustan Times. “As her advocate, I will seek action against the officer who deleted her name without a valid reason because of which she has lost her franchise.”

Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dhinakaran’s party Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam said that the deletion of name was a conspiracy by the Tamil Nadu government. “They have caused a civil death of VK Sasikala,” AMMK’s Thousand Lights candidate N Vaidhyanathan told the Hindustan Times.

Sasikala and her sister-in-law J Ilavarasi, who also used to live in Jayalalithaa’s house, returned to Chennai in February after the former was released from a jail in Bengaluru in connection with a disproportionate assets case. A total of 19 people, including the two, used to live at the former chief minister’s residence, which falls under Chennai’s Thousand Lights Assembly constituency. A month ahead of the Tamil Nadu elections, Sasikala had announced that she was quitting politics.