CHENNAI: Expect the unexpected from her is the mantra that applies to AIADMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Her revelation that the 1965 film Aayirathil Oruvan inspired her entry into politics is part of her mystique—the title’s translation would be one in a thousand. It was her first film with political mentor and party founder MG Ramachandran.
“The film gave me an opportunity to meet and interact with MGR and it left with me an unerasable life-time experience,” Jayalalithaa said after the digital release of the movie. It came just a couple of days after she was elected party general secretary for a record seventh consecutive term. Over 1,000 AIADMK functionaries had filed nominations in her name in 2008; she was elected unanimously. This time, the nominations burgeoned to 2,467 with Rs.25,000 each as nomination fee. History repeated itself. For 33 years of public life, she has been heading a political party—one of the longest records in India.
Jayalalithaa is known for her out-of-the-box thinking. Her schemes have drawn the attention of other states: the Cradle Baby Scheme, free sanitary napkins to the adolescent girls, new mothers and women in prisons, the appointment of women as Executive Officers of temples, the construction of Integrated Women Sanitary Complexes in all of Tamil Nadu’s 12,796 village panchayats, show her emphasis on empowering woman. On the party levelfront, by elevating grassroot functionaries to key posts, she ensures their loyalty. Her advantage is that unlike her arch rival, DMK president M Karunanidhi who is a hostage to dynastic politics that has eroded his party, Jayalalithaa is AIADMK’s only decision-maker. Recently she recalled that when MGR died, the AIADMK had just 17 lakh members and now it is 1.5 crore. The DMK, the parent party, has only 84.36 lakh members even after 65 years. Amma has justified the faith of her nominators—a landslide victory in the 2011 Assembly elections, capturing the local body elections—a feat even MGR couldn’t accomplish followed by winning 37 out of 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu, which no other political party has achieved so far in the state’s history. The AIADMK is the third largest party in the Lok Sabha.
Her party men hope she would reign from 7 race Course Road one day. In 2014, the AIADMK polled higher votes than all other parties in 217 Assembly segments out 234 in Tamil Nadu. Banking on her welfare schemes, she says it would win all the 234 seats in 2016. However, the BJP is trying to engineer a change in the scenario. After becoming the ruling party on its own at the Centre, it seems to have decided to test the waters in Tamil Nadu in the 2016 Assembly elections. As a prelude, the party is contesting in the ongoing by-elections to the local body posts. Already, State BJP president Tamilisai Soundararajan has declared that the BJP-led alliance will be the alternative to the AIADMK in the state. In this contest, Jayalalithaa has to draw new strategies to counter the BJP-led alliance in the next Assembly elections. Her opponents are waitingt to see her next move.