The way she managed relief work after the 2004 tsunami drew praise from then US Senator Hillary Clinton. The names of most newly-launched welfare schemes started with “Amma”. Though the DMK started the freebie culture with its colour television offer as an election promise, it was Jayalalithaa who took it to a different level offering laptops, mixers, grinders and more. She also brought in women’s police in the state and the “Cradle Baby” scheme. Jayalalithaa implemented a water scheme to quench the thirst of Chennai and made rain water harvesting mandatory. “She was charismatic and could attract and convince people. “She was very bold, intelligent and shrewd, three important qualities for a politician,” Thirunavukarasar told IANS. Thirunavukarasar, President of the Congress in Tamil Nadu and an old timer in the AIADMK, explained why Jayalalithaa succeeded the way she did. At the same time, she was not at home with the national opposition which preferred the DMK over the AIADMK. She also had a love-hate relationship with the Congress. She withdrew her support to the BJP government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee after giving the government several sleepless nights in 1999. She wrested the state from the DMK in 2011, but had to step down in September 2014 after being convicted in a corruption case by a Bengaluru court.Īcquitted, she took back the reins in May 2015 and led her party back to power in 2016, when she became the first in three decades to win an assembly poll in the state for a successive term. After being cleared, she took over again in 2002 and ruled till 2006. Losing in 1996, Jayalalithaa returned to power in 2001 but had to step down after her name figured in a court case. In 1991, she became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in elections held after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination at an election rally near Chennai. There was vitriolic opposition to Jayalalithaa’s ascendancy in Tamil politics, especially from the DMK. She became the first woman opposition leader in the state. In the same year, she was elected to the Tamil Nadu assembly for the first time. In 1989, the two factions reunited under Jayalalithaa’s leadership and she was elected its General Secretary. Life became choppy after MGR died in December 1987, leaving Jayalalithaa to battle it out with his wife Janaki for the leadership of the AIADMK.
When MGR fell ill and was under medical treatment in the US, Jayalalithaa led the AIADMK’s alliance with the Congress in the 1984 general and assembly elections. But it was her grit and tenacity that helped Jayalalithaa, a Brahmin in the Dravidian movement, to move her way up. MGR appointed her the AIADMK’s Propaganda Secretary in 1984.
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