Jaya walks along MGRoad, breaks the revolving door of TN politics

CHENNAI: It was a watershed moment for AIADMK when Jayalalithaa Jayaram courageously split the party in 1989 after the old guard propped up Janaki, the wife of party founder MG Ramachandran, as his natural heir.

Though the Jayalalithaa faction did not win the assembly poll that followed, its victories in 27 constituencies against the two of the rival group helped her unite and take over AIADMK as the rightful legatee of MGR. On Thursday, three decades later, Jayalalithaa emulated her mentor in recording successive wins and breaking the tradition of revolving door regimes in Tamil Nadu.

The win came after a campaign in which Jayalalithaa displayed complete self-assurance despite talk of anti-incumbency. She wasn’t always so confident in politics. In the initial years, she had to bank on her “political inheritance” to assert herself, but over the years she was hardened by the roughand-tumble of politics. She is today described as ‘Iron Lady’, ‘revolutionary leader’ and ‘permanent chief minister’ by her followers. They say, in all earnestness, that her career justifies such encomiums. Her evolution as a leader and a formidable rival to M Karunanidhi has been dramatic and controversial. While her perseverance and total control at the helm of the state’s largest regional party have raised her stature and drawn grudging admiration, she still has had to face challenges, her biggest for nearly two decades now being the corruption case that has dogged her. Her first term as CM in 1991-96 was perhaps the most eventful in this context.

A slew of corruption charges against her and her ministerial colleagues, her close association with Sasikalaa, and a lavish wedding she or
ganised for her foster son brought down her government in 1996. In the melee, what went uncelebrated was her success as the administrator of a state that championed industrial growth during the first wave of economic reforms. She bounced back in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, only to withdraw support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government a year later, and lose ground to DMK in the general elections that followed. The perception that she was an unreliable ally at the Centre saw DMK scoring in subsequent Lok Sabha elections.

She stormed back into the assembly in 2001 and scripted some controversial legislations, including an anti-conversion bill, and undertook dubious exercises such as the midnight arrests of government servants. She lost the assembly polls in 2006, but regained ground in 2011 in the company of several partner parties, including actor Vijayakanth’s DMDK. She swept the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 virtually on her own, giving her the confidence to contest the 2016 elections without allies. Her victory is proof enough of her perseverance and ability to understand the public’s mind.