It has been reported that Speaker Dhanapal might inaugurate a huge portrait of deceased former chief-minister J. Jayalalithaa on Monday (12th February) at the Legislative Assembly premises in Chennai.

Though chief-minister Edapadi K. Palaniswami had earlier promised that the late chief-minister’s portrait would be inaugurated in the Assembly, it was widely expected that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would do the honours by inaugurating the portrait. Now that Modi is off to West Asia on official tour (apparently not giving optimism about inaugurating the portrait), it appears that the AIADMK has other ideas.

As the chief-minister’s office in Secretariat, Chennai received no ‘green signal’ from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in New Delhi about the Prime Minister’s inclination to unveil the portrait, the AIADMK regime has decided to go ahead on its own with the unveiling of the portrait of the party’s ‘permanent general secretary’ who was declared ‘dead’ under mysterious circumstances late on the night of 05th December, 2016.

Dhanapal would unveil the portrait of ‘Puratchithalaivi’, referred to as ‘Amma’ by party cadres and people alike, on Monday morning in the presence of chief-minister Edapadi K. Palaniswami and deputy chief-minister O. Panneerselvam at the sprawling hall in the Assembly which already has portraits of Kamarajar, Anna and MGR.