MADURAI: Amidst great confusion, the golden armour of Muthuramalinga Thevar, donated by the late AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa, was given to the Thevar Memorial caretaker Gandhi Meenal Natarajan, after a no-objection was given by both factions of AIADMK.
The bank released the armour under the custody of the District Collector K Veera Raghava Rao and it was taken to Pasumpon, after an undertaking was submitted.
In 2014, the 13-kg gold armour was made for the statue of Muthuramalinga Thevar at his memorial in Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district by the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. From then on, the golden armour would be put on the statue during the Thevar Jayanthi celebrations. The golden armour is kept in safe custody at the locker of the Bank of India, Anna Nagar branch, Madurai.
The Memorial’s caretaker and AIADMK’s Treasurer are in-charge of handling the locker. After the party split into two, Dindigul C Sreenivasan was appointed as the Treasurer in the place of Panneerselvam. Later on, after the merger, Panneerselvam was reappointed as the Treasurer.
In the meantime, the deputy general secretary of the AIADMK, T T V Dhinakaran scrapped the appointment of Panneerselvam and appointed one Rengasamy as the Treasurer. Due to the dispute among the factions, there was confusion over who could receive the golden armour.
On Friday morning, at around 9.45 a.m., Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, who is the Treasurer of the party, along with the caretaker of the memorial Gandhi Meenal Natarajan, went to the bank to take the golden armour. He was accompanied by the Revenue Minister R B Udayakumar, Minister for Cooperation Sellur K Raju, Forest Minister Dindigul C Sreenivasan, Minister for Information Technology Dr M Manikandan and several party cadres.
Meanwhile, TTV Dhinakaran came to Madurai on Thursday night. On Friday morning, when Panneerselvam was inside the bank, Dhinakaran garlanded the statue of Marudhu Brothers near Mariamman Teppakulam and left for Sivaganga to attend the Memorial Day of Marudhu Brothers.
After Dhinakaran left for Sivaganga, a few of his supporters including former Melur MLA R Samy came to the bank as Dhinakaran had also sent a letter to the bank on Thursday asking the bank officials to hand over the armour with only the signature of the caretaker, as an interim arrangement.
While the party cadres supporting the Ministers were let inside the bank premises, a group of party cadres supporting Dhinakaran gathered in front of the bank and picked up a quarrel with the police officials.
Following this, there was a heated argument between both the groups for a few minutes. However, the police officials pacified Dhinakaran’s supporters and asked them to wait at a place near the bank. Heavy police force was deployed in front of the bank. Usually, the process of taking possession of the golden armour from the bank takes nearly 15 minutes. But this time, there was a delay of over five hours as members of both the factions were present inside the bank.
At around 12.30 p.m., District Collector Rao visited the bank. After a discussion with the members of both the factions for nearly five hours, the bank authorities handed over the golden armour to Collector and it was taken to Pasumpon with police protection. Later, in the evening, the golden armour was put on the statue of Muthuramalinga Thevar in his memorial at Pasumpon in Ramanathapuram district.
Blame game
Talking to media persons after the armour was taken to Pasumpon, Panneerselvam said that every year, as the treasurer of the party, appointed by Jayalalithaa, he and the caretaker Gandhi Meenal Natarajan would get the golden armour from the bank on October 27.
This has been the practice since the armour was donated, he said. According to Panneerselvam, when he came to the bank on Friday, the bank authorities said that a third party (Dhinakaran) had submitted a letter objecting to the armour being handed over and that they should obtain a no-objection certificate from the third party to take the armour.
This caused a delay in this process, he said.
Panneerselvam questioned the authorities hesitated to hand over the armour to him and the caretaker since they had all the necessary documents with them, based on a claim made by people who had no documents.
Without mentioning Dhinakaran’s name, Panneerselvam said though they had mentioned in their statement on Thursday that they had no objection to handing over the armour, they are now asking to get a no-objection certificate from them to hand over the armour. “To avoid law and order situation, we suggested it be given to Collector,” he said.