All ministers including me visited Jayalalithaa in hospital, Sellur Raju says

CHENNAI: In what could bring more embarrassment to the Edappadi K Palaniswami government in Tamil Nadu, cooperation minister Sellur K Raju on Tuesday said all ministers, including himself, had visited former chief minister J Jayalalithaa when she was undergoing treatment in Apollo Hospitals in Chennai last year.
“All ministers, including me, visited Amma in hospital,” Raju told reporters on the sidelines of a review meeting of his department here.
The minister’s remark contradicted the recent “confession” of his colleague, environment minister Dindigul C Sreenivasan, that he had lied about Jayalalithaa’s health condition during her hospitalisation.
In a public meeting last week, Sreenivasan sought pardon from the people as he had lied about Jayalalithaa’s health and that she had eaten “idlis and chutney.”
“Friends, the fact is none of us visited her. All of us lied of having met her in hospital. This is the truth, and you can well write it down,” Sreenivasan said, adding that everyone had access only up to the first floor. He alleged that there was restriction on visitors to her room.
The state government on Monday announced setting up of a one-man commission of inquiry headed by retired judge of the Madras high court Justice A Arumughaswamy to probe the death of former chief minister.