Aug. 1: Sasikala Pushpa, the AIADMK Rajya Sabha member who slapped DMK parliamentarian Tiruchi Siva at Delhi airport on Saturday, was summarily expelled from her party today after she refused to resign her House seat.

The MP went down guns blazing, telling the Rajya Sabha how party chief Jayalalithaa had slapped her last evening in Chennai and bullied her to quit her constitutional post, putting her back up.

She later told a news conference the Tamil Nadu chief minister had asked her to quit not because of the airport slap controversy but because Amma wanted to give the seat to someone else.

Sasikala, 40, insisted she would not quit her seat, to which she had been elected in 2014. "My life is under threat," she told the House. "Will the government save me and protect me?"

Within minutes, the AIADMK announced that Sasikala had been expelled for bringing disrepute to the party. Hours later, the Centre deployed three Delhi police personnel as her personal security.

In the news conference at her Delhi bungalow in the afternoon, the MP claimed she would gladly have resigned if Amma had "just asked me to vacate my seat" instead of pressuring her.

She said she had last evening been summoned to Jayalalithaa's residence and forced by the party chief and her aide Chinamma (Sasikala Natarajan) to write a resignation letter. She was told to return to Delhi and hand the letter to Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson P.J. Kurien.

She said her cellphone was taken away. "The way Amma, Chinamma and police officers spoke to me.... My family was outside in a car, crying. They didn't allow me to go to the car and speak to them. This is harassment. They treated me like an accused."

She added: "They booked a flight ticket (to Delhi), they did not even let me go home to freshen up. P. Nagarajan (a party MP) was sent to monitor me in the flight. I did not like the treatment.

"My husband said, 'Listen to what Amma says, you can't live in Tamil Nadu if you go against the CM. She can do anything, file unnecessary cases'.... I don't know what will happen - I submit myself to God."

In Chennai, Sasikala's husband M. Lingeswara Thilagar, an AIADMK member, distanced himself from his wife's remarks, saying she was "merely doing politics and creating drama".

"For me, Amma is everything in politics. She is my God. I have nothing to do with my wife's action," he declared in a statement.

But Sasikala said her home in Tuticorin was stoned today and claimed the police were watching her husband.

She alleged she had been receiving "feelers to resign" for the past two months.

"Two months ago, (Lok Sabha AIADMK leader) M. Thambidurai and his PA came to my house and ask me to resign within a week," she said.

"After I spoke on Women's Day in Parliament, chief minister Jayalalithaa's aide S. Poongundran called me to say Amma had said I should not speak in Parliament. I think she has committed to give my seat to someone else and hence they are humiliating me to force me out."

Sasikala seemed to be hinting that Jayalalithaa was behind the controversial "morphed" images of her and Siva that had circulated on social media before the May Assembly elections.

"For the past four to five months, unwanted allegations have been levelled against me so that my seat could be given to somebody else," she said.

"In the media and WhatsApp, morphed images and rumours have been spread. It is all just to get me out."

Sasikala said Thambidurai had taken her to Kurien this morning to submit her resignation but she had refused. "This post of MP is not something I had asked for. It is a reward for my hard work for the party. So why should I quit?"

But she had "apologised in Parliament today for getting emotional and reacting to Siva Sir".

In Parliament, after Sasikala sought central protection in Tamil Nadu, minister Venkaiah Naidu asked her to write to Rajya Sabha chairperson Hamid Ansari. Kurien said: "I can assure that we will do the needful."

Sasikala repeatedly thanked Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and DMK member Kanimozhi for their support in Parliament but was evasive about her political future.

Siva, 62, had said yesterday he wouldn't apply to Kurien seeking action against Sasikala because he wanted to "end the matter now".

Sasikala has alleged that Siva had angered her by criticising Jayalalithaa. But Siva has denied this, claiming Sasikala had been annoyed at the attention airport security was showering on him.

He has alleged that Sasikala, having been out of favour with Jayalalithaa for sometime, created a political drama to get back into Amma's good books.