STATE OF PLAY
It was no surprise when certain sections of society in Tamil Nadu celebrated the news of the Supreme Court ordering the release of A.G. Perarivalan, one of the seven convicts in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But what has triggered a political controversy is the way Chief Minister M.K. Stalin received Perarivalan on the day of the Supreme Court’s decision. The image of the Chief Minister hugging Perarivalan at the Chennai airport went viral, evoking strong reactions from many, including survivors and other persons affected by the bomb blast in which Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in May 1991. While the BJP State president, K. Annamalai, was forthright in criticising the Chief Minister for his reaction, the Congress, an ally of the DMK in Tamil Nadu, simply stuck to disagreeing with the Supreme Court’s verdict.
Those directly impacted by the assassination are livid that Mr. Stalin greeted Perarivalan warmly. “What did Perarivalan achieve for the Chief Minister to hug him,” asked Anusuya Daisy Ernest, now a retired police officer and one of the survivors of the blast. As a sub-inspector in May 1991 and posted for the security of Rajiv Gandhi, Ms. Ernest had, seconds before the blast, attempted to stop the assassin Dhanu, “the human bomb”, from approaching Rajiv Gandhi but the former Prime Minister had restrained her. “Why did the Chief Minister not meet us (the affected persons of the blast),” the former police officer asked. In the last 31 years, successive Chief Ministers did not bother to meet the survivors of the blast and the family members of the 15 persons (apart from Rajiv Gandhi) who were killed in it, she added.
