MADRAS: Bolstered by an alliance with the Congress (I) the charismatic AIADMK leader Jayalalitha appears to have joined the race for chief minister ship in Tamil Nadu.
Having established herself as the torchbearer of the MGR legacy through successive political victories Jayalalitha has not only reunified the two factions of the AIADMK and regained total control over the party which split after MGR’s death
As in the past an alliance of Congress (I) with either AIADMK or DMK has always been impregnable the AAADMK leader has joined hands with the Congress (I) this time. The party had lost in the last assembly polls when it fought without any poll pact with the Congress (I).
Jayalalitha who took to acting in 1964 when she was 16 and by 1971 when she gave up acting has performed in 115 films of which 82 were Tamil films.
She had acted in as many as 28 films as heroine of MGR with whom she had a ‘peculiar relationship’ as claimed by her. She joined the AIADMK in 1982 on MGR’s persuasion and was appointed as the party’s propaganda secretary raising many cy¢ brows in the party and outside. Jayalalitha’s entry into politics and her meteoric rise in the party not only created bad blood in the AIADMK leadership as they saw in her a serious challenge to them in the party hierarchy but caused anxiety in the opposition camp too as she proved to be a big crowd puller next only to MGR.
MGR’s demise led to stormy developments in the party leading to its vertical split with Jayalalitha leading one faction and Janaki Ramachandran his widow the other. The split in the party and the failure of both the factions to clinch an electoral pact with the Congress (I) proved to be too dear to the AIADMK and facilitated the DMK to stage a comeback after a gap of 13 years.
This had prompted Jayalalitha and her adversaries to close ranks and come to terms. The re-unifed party under her leadership came closer to the Congress (I).
Article extracted from this publication >> May 24, 1991
