Dravidian politicians are far from abashed when it comes to ridiculing each other on a personal level. The Kalaignar Television, run by family members of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, on Thursday played up a video footage that showed AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa and her confidante Sasikala exchanging garlands in a temple near Nagapattinam on Wednesday evening.

While the visuals were innocuous enough, it was the voice over, describing the two women as taking part in a ritual in a temple “like a married couple” that has caused much resentment in AIADMK circles.

The video clip also showed the visuals in slow motion with the narrator making some suggestive remarks.

The occasion happened to be Jayalalithaa’s 60th birthday falling on ‘Maasi Makam’ of the Tamil calendar. She and Sasikala had participated in the ‘ugra ratha shanthi’ or ‘ayush homam’, normally conducted for a person's longevity, at the Thirukkadaiyur temple in Nagapattinam, about 350 kilometres from Chennai. It is customary for men in Tamil Nadu to observe the ‘shashtiabdha poorthi’ along with their wives, exchanging garlands and going through the ritual of “marrying again”.

Reacting angrily to the Kaliangar TV footage and the innuendo, Ganesh Gurukkal, the temple priest at the Amirtha Gateshwara Temple, who conducted the ritual said: “I requested Sasikala Amma to place the garland around Amma (Jayalalithaa) as I could not do it myself. Then Amma garlanded her friend. What is wrong with that?” While television cameras gleefully captured the scene, Kalaignar TV telecast the visuals of the two women, dressed in green silk sarees, exchanging garlands to the accompaniment of the traditional drums (getti melam), normally heard at weddings, in its 1 pm and 7 pm news bulletins.

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