Political observers in the State have been vocal and uniform in their comments and observations about yesterday's Supreme Court verdict which allotted the erstwhile AIADMK’s name, flag and the famed ‘Two-Leaves’ symbol to the unified AIADMK led jointly by deputy chief-minister O. Panneerselvam and chief-minister Edapadi K. Palaniswami: they feel that the verdict means the end of Sasikala’s chapter in politics.

Sasikala made an abortive attempt early in February to take over as chief-minister from O. Panneerselvam, the then chief-minister, who took over within a few hours of demise of ‘Puratchithalaivi’ J. Jayalalithaa (under mysterious circumstances, though) late on the night of 05th December last year.  OPS went on fast near Jayalalithaa’s Marina Memorial and split the party after which Sasilkala landed up in prison.

When she was leaving for Bangalore’s Parappana Agrahara Prison to serve a deserving 4-year long rigorous imprisonment term in the misappropriation of assets case, she not only cursed and slapped hard on the Memorial of her former boss and mentor J. Jayalalithaa but made her nephew as the deputy general secretary of the party.  Dinakaran showed his true colours and tried to take over the party in his aunt’s absence; as a first measure, he nominated himself to contest from R.K. Nagar.

R.K. Nagar by-polls were cancelled and Dinakaran landed up in Delhi’s Tihar prison for attempting to bribe the Election Commission to get the ‘Two-Leaves’ symbol allotted to his faction of the party.  After OPS and EPS factions merged, Dinakaran and Sasikala were ‘sacked’ from the party and 18 MLAs supporting Dinakaran were also disqualified by Speaker Dhanapal.

Dinakaran pleaded with EC to allot the AIADMK’s name, flag and symbol to his faction but the EC allotted it the same to the unified AIADMK being led jointly by OPS and EPS.  Thus, it is widely believed by political observers that Sasikala’s attempt to sustain in Tamil Nadu’s politics might soon become a thing of the past.