Tamil Nadu minister says he did not see Jayalalithaa in hospital; ready to depose before probe panel

Pudukottai (Tamil Nadu): Tamil Nadu minister Vellamandi Natarajan on Sunday said he did not see late chief minister Jayalalithaa during her hospitalisation last year and offered to depose before the one-man inquiry commission set up to probe her demise. [caption id=“attachment_4106663” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa . PTI[/caption] “I did not see Amma (Jayalalithaa) when she was in the Apollo Hospital. We could go only upto the second storey of the hospital. After that no one was allowed (into her room),” he told reporters here. Natarajan, the tourism minister, said he was ready to record this before the inquiry commission. “I will tell this truth to the commission, if they summon me and ask me. In fact all the ministers are ready to depose before the commission,” he added. The state government had last month named retired Madras High Court judge justice A Arumugasamy as the one-man commission of inquiry to probe the circumstances leading to the hospitalisation of Jaylalalithaa on 22 September, 2016 and treatment provided till her demise on 5 December last. Some AIADMK leaders, including ministers, had recently come up with contradicting claims over access to Jayalalithaa during her hospitalisation. While senior minister Dindigul Srinivasan was the first to say that they did not see Jayalalithaa, some of his ministeral colleagues backed his stand while a few others had said they had met the then party supremo in hospital.