Chennai: AIADMK supremo and Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa is talking to doctors and is recovering fast, She could be out of hospital in a few days, said AIADMK senior leader and former finance minister C Ponnaian.

Absence of any new health update from the Apollo Hospital, where Jayalalithaa is lodged since September 22, is no cause for concern at all, he said. “I have been speaking to doctors attending on Amma and also to Richard Beale, the London doctor . She is responding very well and lung infection is nearly cured. As is normal there is respiratory support, to pump in pure oxygen that can cure infection faster,” he said.

She may need to spend ten more days in hospital and later need a fortnight of bed rest, the senior AIADMK leader said.

Apollo Hospital has not released any health update after October 10 as it was very annoyed with some criticism levelled against it by the DMK, Ponnaian said.

A contention that the DMK rejected it outright.

DMK spokesperson Manu Sundaram said that the DMK had never questioned the health condition of Jayalalithaa and we had only expressed concern over the fact that there should be an interim arrangement to run the state even as the CM was indisposed.

The DMK is also not questioning the Apollo Hospital, but the only issue is that there should be no scope for rumors.

But in the name of fighting rumors, the ruling party and the AIADMK were targeting the DMK cadres, he alleged and said the arrests being undertaken were very harsh.

AIADMK, however, justified the arrests saying that “no one spreading false information on Amma’s health deserved to be spared.”

Human rights activists condemn the arrests, which only reminded the people of the defamation cases against all and sundry, whoever criticized the government.

Said Sudha Ramalingam, advocate and human rights activist, CM’s health is a matter of public concern and the government must inform the people of the reality. In the absence of specific and correct information, speculations are made. It is not proper for the government to arrest people and throw them in jail for speculating, she said and added, it is particularly reprehensible the arrest of two Coimbatore bankers just for speaking ill of the chief minister in front of an AIADMK leader.