CHENNAI: With V K Sasikala gearing up to become Chief Minister, Tamil Nadu will be the first State in the country to have had three women Chief Ministers.
The first ever woman Chief Minister was Janaki Ramachandran, who succeeded her husband M G Ramachandran after his demise in 1988. However, besides holding the honour of being the first woman Chief Minister of the State, she also holds the record of holding office for only 24 days, the shortest in Tamil Nadu history.
She was replaced by M Karunanidhi whose government was dissolved in two years, to be replaced by the late J Jayalalithaa. She was sworn in five times as the Chief Minister, having to resign office two times due to cases.
After her death, O Paneerselvam was appointed Chief Minister but is now being replaced by Jaya’s close aide, Sasikala. Till date, 16 women have served as Chief Ministers in the country. Presently, the country has three women Chief Ministers besides Sasikala, Mehbooba Mufti in the North in Jammu and Kashmir, Mamta Bannerjee in the East in West Bengal and Vasundhara Raje in the West in Rajasthan.
From Thiruthuraipoondi to Fort St George
She is now a little more than 62 years old. But more than half of her lifetime, she had been the shadow of Jayalalithaa. She was often described in media as Jayalalithaa’s aide. But the late Chief Minister had herself called Sasikala as “sister”. Two months after Jaya’s demise, Sasikala has now completely emerged out of the shadows.
Born on August 18, 1954 to C Vivekanandam and V Krishnaveni at Thiruthurai-poondi in the present Tiruvarur district, her first encounter with top rungs in the political world was when she got married to M Natarajan, who was then a staff in the public relation department of the Tamil Nadu government. The then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi attended the wedding.
Sasikala got acquainted with Jayalalithaa in 1982. It was Sasikala who had got video-graphed the function of Jayalalithaa while she was organising a party conference in Cuddalore in 1982. This conference was often referred as a turning point in Jaya’s political career. The relationship remained strong throughout the first five-year tenure of Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister from 1991. She faced a harsh time in 1996 when her detractors in the party accused her of being responsible for Jayalalithaa’s defeat that year.
Jayalalithaa’s death was seen as a personal loss for Sasikala who stayed with Jayalalithaa at her Veda Nilayam residence in Poes Garden, even choosing to stay away from her husband. Soon after Jaya’s demise, AIADMK cadre started referring Sasikala as “Chinnamma” and she emerged as the numero uno.