Jayalalithaa’s video in Apollo hospital surfaces before RK Nagar bypoll, EC says don’t air it

A video said to be of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa was released by a leader of the TTV Dinakaran camp on Wednesday, a day before a by-election to the city’s RK Nagar assembly constituency that fell vacant after the AIADMK leader’s death last December.

P Vetrivel released a 20-second video clip apparently taken by a mobile phone camera to the media purportedly showing Jayalalithaa sitting on a bed at Chennai’s Apollo Hospital and drinking something from a white plastic glass using a straw. Dinakaran is the nephew of VK Sasikala, a close aide of the 68-year-old Jayalalithaa who took control of the AIADMK after the chief minister’s death. “It’s false that no one met Jayalalithaa in the hospital. There’s video proof. We waited for days before releasing it but released it now as we were left with no option. The inquiry commission hasn’t summoned us yet. If it does, we’ll submit evidence to them,” news agency ANI quoted Vetrivel as saying.

Vetrivel, a disqualified MLA, dismissed suggestions that the video had anything to do with the bypolls.

“Now I have done this. Let us see what happens,” Vetrivel said when asked if his camp was apprehensive that the video was in violation of the model code of conduct.

The video, he said, was shot by Sasikala and that Dinakaran and he had its copies. Dinakaran had said in the past that he had a video clip and he would release it at an appropriate time.

Vetrivel also questioned the government for not releasing the video, a copy of which it had, and alleged that it did not submit it to the inquiry commission.