Chennai: “I have made at least 25 trips to the Apollo Hospital since my aunt was admitted (on September 22) but could not see her”, said Deepa Madhavan, niece of Jayalalithaa, after spending the entire night of Sunday outside the hospital.
“I went there at about 8.30 last night and returned home only around seven this morning”, she told DC on Monday.

Deepa is the daughter of Jayalalithaa’s only brother Jayakumar and lives with her businessman husband Madhavan in T’Nagar. A former journalist, she said she has been now engaged in some research in UK.

Jayalalithaa had kept her brother away for reasons best known to her and only laid on his body when he died at his T’Nagar house in 1995.

“It is not true that aunty disliked us. Actually, she loved me and spent much time talking to me whenever I visited her in her Poes Garden bungalow. However, the people there ensured that I did not gain access to her during the last four or five years”, Deepa said. She declined to identify “the people”.

Recalling her Sunday night ordeal, Deepa said when she approached the police outside the Apollo and identified herself, the cops told her to wait while they checked with the higher-ups.

She was brusquely told there was no clearance. “I said I would stay put till I was let inside. By about 2.30 in the night, the women police started pushing us away. I kept protesting that I am entitled to see the CM as I am her blood rel
ative and she is lying critically ill in the hospital bed. Finally, after all that intimidation and insulting, we left at 6.30 in the morning”.