Former Chief Minister and AIADMK coordinator O. Panneerselvam on Monday said he had raised the issue of shifting the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa abroad for treatment [in 2016] with the then Health Minister C. Vijayabhaskar and Local Administration Minister S.P. Velumani, and Apollo Hospitals’ founder-chairman Pratap C. Reddy’s son-in-law Vijayakumar Reddy.
Deposing before the [retired] Justice Arumughaswamy Commission, probing Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation and death, Mr. Panneerselvam said he had suggested sending Jayalalithaa abroad for treatment citing the examples of former Chief Ministers Annadurai and M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) . The AIADMK leader said Mr. Vijayabhaskar told him that he would discuss with Apollo Hospitals about such a possibility and that Mr. Vijayakumar Reddy informed him that there was improvement in Jayalalithaa’s health and that she could be discharged in a week.
However Mr. Panneerselvam at whose insistence the previous AIADMK government set up the Commission, appeared before the Commission after eight summons, and claimed ignorance in response to a large number of questions posed by the Commission. Mr. Panneerselvam told the Commission that he was not aware as to why Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on the night of September 22, 2016, as he was in his native place and that when he came to know about her hospitalisation, he immediately rushed to Apollo Hospitals by afternoon the next day and got the details from the Chief Secretary.
