Jayalalithaa's current term - Part 1

It might interest you to read my earlier post titled "Jayalalithaa's first term - a recap" before reading this post.

After her heavy defeat at the hustings in 1996, most people thought that it is the end of the road for Jayalalithaa's career as a politician. No one wanted to be in her shoes in the aftermath of 1996 elections as her successor Muthuvelar Karunanidhi's government slapped as many as 45 cases based on corruption charges and even made her spend about a month or so behind the bars.

Five years and political realignments later, when the elections for Tamilnadu Assembly were held in 2001, this Indian Voter had the opportunity to follow her campaign trail in interior Tamilnadu. Jayalalithaa, referring to her jewel-less face managed to elicit sympathy among the rural voters, especially among the fairer sex. At every pocket she roared, "Ungal anbu sagodhariyai paartheergala. Thamizh pengalukke uriya azhagiya murayil oru siru nagai kooda aniya vidaamal seidhu vittaan andha Karunanidhi", translating to "Karunanidhi is responsible for my current state. See, I am not even able to wear any jewel in the traditional Tamil way. Look at the plight of your beloved sister". In a way that only she can, Jayalalithaa managed to turn her great weakness (corruption charges) into a point of strength or sympathy. Jayalalithaa's AIADMK swept to power with a comfortable majority.

With the press constantly reminding the public about her previous tenure and the slew of corruption charges, with no worthwhile second rung leadership, Jayalalithaa's return to power in a way proved to her critics and the world alike that she is made of sterner stuff. Though she contested the elections in the alliance of Ramadoss' Paatali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and G.K.Moopanar's Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), in her typical style she dumped both of them very soon after assuming power.

Even for those who were not well versed with the kazhagam politics of Tamilnadu, one of the awaited incident was the arrest of M.Karunanidhi. Ever since Jayalalithaa stormed back to power, it was never a question of "whether", it was just a matter of "when". Jaya made the answer available late on a Friday night. What should have been a normal incident of arresting a politician turned to be a major national issue due to the high-handedness of Jayalalithaa in handling it in an inappropriate manner and the police officer Mohammed Ali, who went out of the way to please his boss. Not just Karunanidhi was arrested under controversial circumstances, Union Ministers Murasoli Maran & T.R.Baalu were arrested and the former was even beaten up. DMK's mouthpiece Sun TV utilised the opportunity well by beaming the arrest related incidents all through the day trying to evoke sympathy.

Entire nation was stunned on seeing the Union Ministers behind the bars and at one point of time, Vajpayee's NDA government even contemplated using Article 355 on Tamilnadu. The reason it was not used was because Congress, which was an ally of AIADMK at that time was ready to bail out Jaya in the Rajya Sabha, when the government had to get its order ratified in the Upper House of the Parliament. NDA didn't have enough strength in the Rajya Sabha then and Congress had already, much to the embarassment of the Government had voted against the ratification of use of Article 356 (dismissal) on Rabri Devi government in Bihar in 1998-99. Thus, Vajpayee government suffered the ignonimity of reinstating Rabri Devi as Bihar's Chief Minister few weeks after dismissing her. Coming back to TN, Jayalalithaa under enormous pressure from all quarters released Karunanidhi on "health grounds" within 3 days of his arrest. Karunanidhi's arrest had impact at two places, none of which made any difference to the common man. One, Karunanidhi was accorded 'Z' category security by the Central Government. Two, TN Governor Fathima Beevi was sacked for giving a partial report (in favour of TN Government) on the incident.