By IANS
Chennai : AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalitha has expelled eleven party cadres from Tiruchirapally for hobnobbing with M. Natarajan, the estranged husband of her long-time companion N. Sasikala.
Natarajan is a former Tamil Nadu government official. He was Jayalalitha’s manager in the late 1980s and his wife got close to the AIADMK leader at the time. Natarajan parted ways with both Jayalalitha and Sasikala in the 1990s.
Jayalalitha Monday stripped the 11 AIADMK men of their party posts and primary memberships for interacting with Natarajan.
“I’ve already said several times that no AIADMK person should have contact with Natarajan”, Jayalalitha said in a statement issued here.
“These people have participated in functions with Natarajan and have violated party discipline,” she said.
Sasikala has been the AIADMK chief’s close companion since the late 1980s, but lost her trust for a few years after Jayalalitha’s electoral defeat in 1996 on corruption charges. Sasikala is the co-accused in many of the cases against Jayalalitha.
Sasikala returned to Jayalalitha’s fold following the AIADMK victory in 2001 but Natarajan’s ties remained strained with the leader.