TN’s leading lady signs off : The Tribune India

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1948-2016

TN’s leading lady signs off

CHENNAI: J Jayalalithaa, tinsel town heroine who practised politics on her own terms to remain one of the main poles of Tamil Nadu politics for three decades, was a feisty leader with a lot of grit and determination.

TN’s leading lady signs off


Chennai, December 5

J Jayalalithaa, tinsel town heroine who practised politics on her own terms to remain one of the main poles of Tamil Nadu politics for three decades, was a feisty leader with a lot of grit and determination staging remarkable comebacks despite setbacks on account of corruption cases.

A teen starlet, who acted with the who's who of Tamil cinema in the sixties and seventies, Jayalalitha went on to become a five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, effortlessly inheriting the mantle of her mentor and superstar MGR.

Practitioner of adulatory politics, she has often been criticised for the public display of unswerving loyalty of her senior leaders and cadre, but nothing deterred her from what she sought to achieve in her own way.

Born in a Brahmin family in Mysore in Karnataka, Jayalalithaa quite often had the better of her arch-rival M Karunanidhi, a stalwart and one of the earliest products of the Dravidian movement that was founded on an anti-Brahmin platform.

After her formal initiation into the politics in 1982 when she was inducted into the AIADMK, she displayed enormous political skills in shouldering the task of running the party after the death of M G Ramachandran in 1987.

Jayalalithaa had to quit twice over corruption cases, but managed to stage dramatic comebacks on both occasions.

While the journey of actor Jayalalithaa started in 1965 in 'Vennira Aadai,' (The White Dress), she assumed her political avatar in 1982 after MGR made her the propaganda secretary the next year.

She was made a Rajya Sabha member in 1984 by Ramachandran, with whom she had paired opposite in 28 films, and led the party's charge in the 1984 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls when he could not go on a campaign trail following illness.

But her moment of reckoning came a few years later when Ramachandran died in 1987, with AIADMK at crossroads. The leader was humiliated as MGR's body was lying in state in the heritage Rajaji Hall when a DMK leader tried to push her from the rostrum.

She faced intense and protracted struggle to eventually head the AIADMK overcoming the animosity of rival camps. AIADMK split into two factions then — AIADMK (J) and AIADMK (Ja) — after Jayalalithaa and Janaki, wife of Ramachandran.

Jayalalithaa successfully contested the Tamil Nadu Assembly election in 1989 from Bodinayakkanur and became the first woman Leader of Opposition in the House. This period saw some challenges in her political and personal life, with Jayalalithaa alleging she was harassed and attacked by ruling DMK in the House even as she met with a deadly accident. 

She unified AIADMK in 1990 which had split following the death of Ramachandran and led her party to a superb victory in 1991 with a massive majority. However, the five-year period turned out to be her undoing as corruption charges, display of pomp during her foster son's marriage and non-performance led to her defeat in the 1996 elections at the hands of arch rival DMK.

Soon after several cases were filed against her and she had to quit twice (in 2001 and 2014). Between September 29, 2014, and May 22, 2015, she was out of office after she was disqualified as a legislator and consequently lost chief ministership following her conviction in a graft case by a trial court in Bengaluru which was later set aside by the Karnataka HC.

She was jailed twice, once after the DMK government registered a graft case in 1996 and then after her conviction in 2014. But she took a legal recourse to stage terrific comebacks on both occasions.

Altogether, she was sworn in as CM five times — 1991-96, May-Sept 2001, 2002-06, 2011-14, 2015-16.

Hailed as 'Puratchi Thalaivi' (Revolutionary Leader), she proved wrong all calculations of DMK retaining power in 2011. She retained power in 2016, scripting history after three decades to ensure that a party won a successive term. — PTI


From Kollywood to Fort St George

  • Feb 24, 1948 Jayalalithaa is born in Melukote, then Mysore State now in Karnataka, to Jayaram and Vedavalli; named Jayalalithaa at the age of one
  • 1950 Jayaram dies. Vedavalli goes to live with her parents in Bangalore along with Jayalalithaa and her brother
  • 1964 Jayalalithaa makes her film debut in a lead role in ‘Chinnada Gombe’, a Kannada film
  • 1965 She stars in ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, with Tamil cinema’s biggest star MG Ramachandran (MGR) for the first time
  • 1977 Jayalalithaa steps back from films
  • 1982 She joins MG Ramachandran’s AIADMK and delivers her maiden political speech
  • 1984 She is elected to the Rajya Sabha, as MGR wants her there for her fluency in English and knowledge of several languages. She remains a member of the Rajya Sabha till 1989
  • 1986 MGR sacks Jayalalithaa from all party posts after she forms a parallel political outfit. However, she continues as Rajya Sabha member of the AIAMDK
  • 1987 MGR dies, leaving no clear political heir. AIADMK descends into chaos over his legacy. Jayalalithaa competes with his widow Janaki for control of the party. The party splits into two major factions, one behind each woman
  • 1989 The Assembly election saw the Jayalalithaa faction win 27 seats to the Janaki faction’s two. Janaki steps aside to clear the way for Jayalalithaa’s accession to MGR’s legacy. Jayalalithaa becomes Tamil Nadu’s first woman Leader of Opposition
  • 1991 Jayalalithaa storms to power as the CM for the first time after allying with the Congress
  • 1998 AIADMK wins 18 of 39 seats as part of the NDA, and becomes part of the Vajpayee government
  • April 1999 Jayalalithaa pulls out of the NDA government
  • 2000 She is convicted in Pleasant Stay Hotel case and the TANSI land acquisition case
  • May 2001 AIADMK alliance sweeps Assembly elections, winning 196 of 234 seats. Jayalalithaa sworn in as CM 
  • Dec Court overturns her convictions in both TANSI and Pleasant Stay Hotel cases
  • May 2011 AIADMK-led alliance wins 203 of the 234 seats
  • May 2014 AIADMK wins 37 of 39 seats, becomes third largest party in the Lok Sabha, just behind Congress’ 44
  • Sept 27 Trial court sentences Jayalalithaa to four years in jail and Rs 100 crore in fines
  • Oct 17 She is granted bail by the Supreme Court
  • May 11, 2015 She is acquitted of all charges in the disproportionate assets case by the Karnataka High Court
  • May 23 She takes oath to return as the CM
  • May 2016 She creates history by becoming the first CM in 32 years to be voted back to power
  • Sept-Oct Jayalalithaa admitted to Chennai’s Apollo Hospital on September 22 
  • Dec 5 She breathes her last, aged 68

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