'What Does Immediately Mean?' Supreme Court Snaps At VK Sasikala's Team

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has made it clear that VK Sasikala, convicted for corruption yesterday, needs to make herself available immediately to be jailed. "You know the meaning of the word immediately?" a judge snapped when her lawyer asked for her to be allowed some time to surrender, citing health reasons.

Ms Sasikala, 61, was found guilty of conspiring with five-time Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who she lived with, to acquire a nearly 60-crore fortune that did not match their disclosed sources of income. The real estate, luxury cars, diamonds, gold and other assets were collected during Ms Jayalalithaa's first term in the 90s. Ms Sasikala was sentenced to four years in prison and banned from contesting an election for a decade. The verdict, delivered in a breakneck eight minutes by two judges, turned into roadkill her aspiration to become Tamil Nadu's head of state.

After Ms Jayalalithaa died in December while still Chief Minister, her closest aide's run for power was free of any stop signs. Their party, the AIADMK, first accorded her the all-powerful post of General Secretary; then, it decided about 10 days ago that she should become Chief Minister. That, as it turns out, did not sit well with O Panneerselvam, who, in keeping with a long tradition of serving as Ms Jayalalithaa's stand-in, had been named Chief Minister after the politician's death.
 He turned in his resignation without dissent, but two days later, surfaced at Ms Jayalalithaa's memorial on the beach in Chennai to declare that he would strive to keep his job. Ms Sasikala and he then placed competing claims with Governor C Vidyasagar Rao to take a trust vote to become Chief Minister. While the Governor contemplated his options, Ms Sasikala packed about 120 of the AIADMK'S 134 state legislators into a resort which they have not exited for five days; they have purveyed letters to confirm their stay is voluntary. Meanwhile, Mr Panneerselvam, enabled in part by crowd-sourced anger against Ms Sasikala's planned promotion - social media has railed against her political inexperience and her relatives' murky business empire - has won 11 legislators to his side. The modest number should not be discounted - Ms Sasikala's faction has about six more legislators than it needs to win the vote.

After her conviction yesterday, Ms Sasikala, who has to surrender at a court in Bengaluru and be jailed in the city, held a meeting at the resort to pick E Palanisamy, a loyalist, as the party's presumptive Chief Minister. The Governor will now choose when and if he should be given the chance to prove his majority. Mr Panneerselvam has not withdrawn his request for the same.

Today, to signal that she will, even from jail, remain the showrunner of the AIADMK, Ms Sasikala re-inducted into the party two male relatives who had been expelled by Ms Jayalalithaa for "a conspiracy" against her and the party. Their return will allow Mr Panneerselvam to claim that just as he alleges, Ms Sasikala is betraying the party's matriarch and her vision.