Reporter's diary: Your ‘varisu’ is city mayor, not you!

CHENNAI: Chennai Mayor R Priya, thrust into active politics, has enough naysayers to nitpick every misstep of hers. By the end of her tenure, she is more likely to accumulate the wealth of experience of a seasoned politician, for the sheer pressure her office holds.

Admittedly, she has senior politicians who guide her to manoeuvre the world of realpolitik, but there’s one senior who is doing her more harm than good — her father, R Rajan.

Rajan is an area-level functionary of the DMK and was a literal unknown until his daughter was chosen to become the city’s mayor.

In the last three months, Rajan had come to negotiate twice with the families of victims of alleged police torture.

Since public memory is short-lived, a reminder that the victims in both cases are young men — a 20-year-old M Akash who died in September and a 26-year-old K Dinesh Kumar on Tuesday.

In both cases, the victims happened to be from neighbourhoods near Rajan. But, to negotiate with the families asking them to stand down is not the right optics for the office his daughter holds. In case of Akash’s death, Rajan even parroted the official version of him dying due to health complications, thanks to alleged excess drinking.

The ‘mayor’s father’ is not a post. It’s high time the mayor has a talk with her father. May be, she can draw inspiration from her favourite actor, Vijay, who didn’t hesitate to take his father to court when the latter crossed boundaries.