Jayalalithaa Case Study

...

POLITICAL CAREER

Dr. MGR had been instrumental in bringing Jayalalithaa into politics. He had introduced her into his party AIADMK. People say he had kept her in his grip from the beginning. Sources believe Jaya and MGR had an affair because of the on-screen as well as the off-screen relationship they had shared. In fact the media called her, his mistress. In 1984, she had been appointed as the Secretary of the party and then she was elected as a Member of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha. When MGR died in 1987, Jaya was the only one with no doubt who was encouraged by the rest of the party members to stand for AIADMK to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly. She had won the same in 1989. She was the first woman leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Tamil Nadu.

She was admired by the rank and uplifting of the party at a large stake. She was, with no negative opposition, regarded as being MGR’s political heir. In 1988 the AIADMK had split with one fraction supporting MGR’s widow wife Janaki and the other one supporting Jayalalithaa.

When Rajiv Gandhi had been allegedly assassinated in the year 1991, Jayalalithaa had got into alliance with Congress. Her support as well as tie up with the party especially at such a miserable condition of the party had led her in winning the elections and hence, came into Tamil Nadu, the second female Chief Minister; Jayalalithaa. Apart from being a female Chief Minister, she was the youngest Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu to be in full time service from 24 June 1991 until 12 May 1996.

During her first reign of service as Chief Minister she had introduced a scheme called “Cradle Baby Scheme”, owing to the circumstances at that period such that the ratio of male in comparison to female was plenty due to infanticide of girl babies and abortion of fetuses once sex was determined to be as female. Due to this scheme a lot of unwanted baby girls were led into adoption by a large number of childless parents. Her Government was the first one in the history of Tamil Nadu to introduce police stations that would be solely administered and operated by women. These were 57 in number. A lot of all-women establishments were encouraged and brought into force during this reign of her service as the CM.

However, in 1996 she had lost the elections against the party DMK’s candidate. This loss of power did not play much of a negative role in her political life. An event; her foster son Sudhakaran married actor Shivaji Ganesan’s granddaughter, held two Guinness world records. One was that this wedding was the one that had the largest number of guests until date in history, and the second one was that this wedding had the largest wedding banquet.

1996 was not a good year for Jaya inspite of such a grand wedding. Mister K Karunanidhi, leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party arrested her in account of cooruption and she had to spend a few weekd in jail. She was later released in January 1997.

In 2001, Jayaalithaa came back into power with a bang. She had taken the oath of service into the seat of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the second time. But again luck did not hold for long as her appointment was voided off legally owing to conviction of criminal acts. During this period, one of her faithful party ministers, O Panneerselvam was termed as the Chief Minister even though he was just playing the puppeteer controlled person by Jaya. Later on in 2003, she had been waived off some charges and paid the rest to the Madras High Court. This was her main chance in contesting into the mid-term poll elections at the Andipatti Constituency, and at which she had won a huge margin. She had encouraged India to set up the first company of commandos consisting of only females.

2006 was also not her cup of tea. She had lost again to DMK. But the break made her win by a tremendous difference against DMK in 2011 and she had won the 14th state election. This era saw her as the Chief Minister for the third time. DMK had been charged and accused for corruption. This made people vote for Jayalalithaa and also owing to the great changes she had made in the society to improve the living conditions of the people and particularly the women at large.

CONTROVERSIES: DISPROPORTIONATE ASSETS CASE, 2014

On 20th August 1996, Subramanian Swamy, a member of Bharatiya Janata party had launched a disproportionate assets case on Jayalalithaa. The case went on unfinished for 18 years and on 27th September 2014, a four year sentence to jail had been given to her and also fined by Rupees 100 crore by the Special Court in Bangalore. The Income Tax Department had a strong report on her. She was devastated and at a state of complete disaster. She was immediately arrested along with her foster son, her niece Ilavarasi, her nephew and her closest aide Sasikala Natarajan. They were all fined Rupees 10 crore each other than a four year sentence to jail service. She was convicted of owning assets worth Rupees 66.65 crore which was inclusive of 2000 acres of land, 30 kg of gold and 12000 sarees that was totally disproportionate and not a penny accounted for. But again which politician can show the world properly proportionate accounts of his/her holding? Atleast an Indian one.

She was automatically taken off the title of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and this unfortunate event made her the first Indian Chief Minister to be disqualified while still in power. Her place, again, like before had been taken over by O Panneerselvam. He was so devoted to her such that he did not sit on the actual CM seat in which she had been sitting while in power. The Supreme Court however, granted her two months bail and suspended the sentence she had to serve in this case on 17th October, 2014 and had to appeal the petition in December of the same year. A special section of the Karnataka High Court set aside the trial court order that had convicted Jaya and acquitted all the charges that she was in debt of in the Disproportionate Assets Case.

For the fifth time, J.Jayalalithaa swore in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on 23rd May, 2015.

CONCLUSION

“Kalaimamani” was the award given to her by the Government of Tamil Nadu in 1972 and she did live up to such a title given to her. Her talent, her hope, her courage and passion to achieve has brought her to where she is right now and she continues to inspire the people and especially the youth to nurture leadership and unambiguity. Ladies claim to walk freely on roads even in the late hours of evenings due to the importance she has laid upon them and their safety. “Amma” canteen is proving to