Who is TTV Dinakaran? 10 Things to Know About Sasikala's Nephew

New Delhi: The Delhi Police Crime Branch on Monday named AIADMK leader TTV Dinakaran in an FIR filed after the seizure of Rs 1.5 crore allegedly aimed at influencing the war over the party’s election symbol of “two leaves”.

Delhi Police had arrested one S Chandrashekhar with the cash, and seized a BMW and a Mercedes car from him. The arrest comes amid a bitter fight for the AIADMK’s ‘two-leaf’ symbol between the O Panneerselvam and the VK Sasikala faction of Tamil Nadu’s ruling party.

Here’s all you need to know about him:

- Dinakaran is VK Sasikala’s nephew. He has two brothers — Bhaskaran and Sudhakaran. They are from Theni district. Sudhakaran was Jayalalithaa’s foster son, but she had later disowned him publicly

- After Jayalalithaa’s death, Dinakaran shifted to Poes Garden, along with his aunt Sasikala. He was seen standing behind Sasikala when Jayalalithaa’s body was kept in state.

- Dinakaran was reinducted into the AIADMK and appointed deputy general secretary on February 15, hours before Sasikala left to surrender in a Bengaluru court to serve the jail term in a disproportionate assets case

- Dinakaran’s re-entry into the party came five years after he was expelled by Jayalalithaa amid reports that he was interfering in party and government functioning

- Dinakaran has also served as Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha member

- He is facing a Foreign Exchange Regulations Act (FERA) violation case with Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing unexplained deposits of big chunks of money into his accounts between during 1991 to 1995.

- He tried to wriggle out from the ED probe saying he was a Singapore citizen. But the ED did not buy this and found him guilty of money laundering.

- The Madras High Court on January 6 this year confirmed the penalty of Rs 25 crore imposed on Dinakaran by ED in the 1996 case.

- Dinakaran was contesting as AIADMK candidate for April 12 RK Nagar bypoll which was eventually cancelled by the Election Commission over alleged use of money power.

- Dinakaran had been reportedly lobbying with the rebel OPS camp members to come back to the parent party.