OPS faction campaigning with a dummy of Jayalalithaa in a coffin during the R K Nagar bypoll campaign. OPS faction campaigning with a dummy of Jayalalithaa in a coffin during the R K Nagar bypoll campaign.

THE AIADMK (Puratchi Thalaivi Amma) faction, led by former Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam, unveiled a shock element in its campaign for the by-election to RK Nagar Assembly constituency on Thursday. At one point during the day’s campaigning, a vehicle carrying former minister K Pandiarajan had a coffin placed on its bonnet, with a figurine of late CM and party chief J Jayalalithaa — apparently an attempt to tell supporters that her death needs a thorough investigation.

The dummy, wrapped in a green sari and a garland around its neck, was covered with the Tricolour. It appeared a recreation of the scene at Rajaji Hall, where Jayalalithaa’s body was kept for display after her death.

While the police soon intervened and forced the supporters to take the ‘coffin’ off the vehicle, the Panneerselvam camp denied any role in the incident. Claiming that the dummy coffin was not part of their campaign strategy, ‘Aspire’ K Swaminathan, spokesperson of the Panneerselvam faction, said, “As the vehicle was moving, some enthusiastic party worker placed it on the vehicle. There was confusion but we removed it within two minutes and advised the worker not to repeat it.”

A police officer had a different version: “The leaders (of Panneerselvam camp) tried to retain it after the police arrived and raised objection. But the police took the coffin off the bonnet. As the leaders insisted and tried to claim it back, the police relented but said that campaigning will not be allowed if the coffin is kept on display.”

The leaders and supporters took it from the police and went to their election booth office nearby, the official said. Jayalalithaa was the MLA from RK Nagar, and the by-election was necessitated by her death, which the Panneerselvam camp wants investigated.

T T V Dinakaran, a nephew of V K Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s former aide and leader of rival Amma faction of AIADMK, is the candidate from RK Nagar. Pitted against him from the Panneerselvam camp is E Madhusudhanan, a senior AIADMK leader who was the party’s presidium chairman before Jayalalithaa’s death. Convicted in a disproportionate assets case, Sasikala is now lodged in a Karnataka jail.

In the past, AIADMK supporters had used M G Ramachandran’s photo with a bandage around the neck to invoke sympathy when the matinee idol-turned-politician was injured. During the elections after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, Congress supporters in the state had widely used the photo of a shattered veteran Congress leader G K Moopanar at the blast site to trigger sympathy.

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