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Jayalalithaa Jayaram, usually known as J. Jayalalithaa (born February 24, 1948, Mysore) is a former Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu, India. She is also the present general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a regional party in the state. She was voted out of power in the May 2006 elections. However, her party and its allies managed to secure enough positions in the legislative assembly to form the strongest opposition benches in the House since 1977. She is also the current Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly. She is popularly called Amma (mother) and Puratchi Thalaivi (Revolutionary Leader) by her followers.

She was born in Mysore to actress Sandhya as Komalavalli. Prior to her venture into politics, she had a successful career in the Tamil film industry as an actress. Chinnada Gombe, her first film (in Kannada) was a major hit. Her first Telugu film Manushulu Mamathalu made her a superstar. In 1972, she was honoured by the Tamil Nadu government with the award Kalaimamani.

Politics

In 1981, she joined the AIADMK and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1984, marking her entry into the Parliament of India. Her association with politics grew from her relationship with M. G. Ramachandran (popularly known as M.G.R), movie star and then Chief Minister. On M.G R's death, she was alienated by a faction of the party who chose to support M.G R's wife Janaki Ramachandran. Drawing on her massive popularity and her image as the "wronged woman", in 1989, she won the elections to the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly—incidentally, she became the first woman to be elected Leader of the Opposition. She accused that the then ruling party, the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam - Dravidian People's Party), tried to assault her in the assembly, and there, she reportedly took an oath to enter the assembly house only as chief minister. In 1991, following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, just days before the elections, her alliance with Indian National Congress paid off as a sympathy wave propelled the coalition to a massive victory. She was re-elected to the legislative assembly and became the first elected woman chief minister of Tamil Nadu (Janaki Ramachandran technically became the first woman chief minister following her husband's death, but she was unelected and presided over a transitional 'caretaker' government) serving the full tenure (June 24, 1991 - May 12, 1996). However, due to an anti-incumbency wave, and several allegations of corruption and malfeasance against her and her ministers, she lost power to the DMK in 1996, in a landslide defeat. All the ministers in her erstwhile cabinet, including her, were defeated in the elections and six of them even lost their deposits, indicating that they did not even secure the minimum number of votes expected of them. She returned to power with a huge majority in the 2001 elections, having mustered a bigger coalition and defying many pre-poll predictions. In the last assembly elections held in 2006, her party had to relinquish power to the DMK government.

During the years out of power, she had to face a number of criminal lawsuits related to her first term rule, mostly dealing with embezzlement and monetary fraud. In 2001, a specially designated court convicted her of criminal breach of trust and of illegally acquiring governmental property belonging to TANSI, a state-run agency, and sentenced her to five years' imprisonment. She appealed against the sentence to the Supreme Court of India. While the appeal was under judicial consideration, the conviction disqualified her from contesting the 2001 elections. However, having led her party to victory, she controversially became the Chief Minister as a non-elected member of the assembly.

On September 21, 2001, a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India ruled that "a person who is convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of not less than two years cannot be appointed the Chief Minister of a State under Article 164 (1) read with (4) and cannot continue to function as such". Thereby, the bench decided that "in the appointment of Ms. Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister there has been a clear infringement of a Constitutional provision and that a writ of quo warranto must issue".

In effect, her appointment as Chief Minister was declared null and invalid. Therefore, technically, she was not the Chief Minister in the period between May 14, 2001 and September 21, 2001. . O. Panneerselvam, a junior minister, was subsequently installed as the Chief Minister. However, his government was widely believed to have been puppeted and micro-managed by Jayalalithaa. In 2003, the Supreme Court acquitted her in the specific case, for lack of conclusive evidence to convict her. This cleared the way for her to contest a mid-term poll to the Andipatti constituency, after the elected representative for the seat, gave up his membership. Winning the election by a handsome margin, Jayalalithaa took over the Chief Ministership again. She is still a party to a few criminal litigations from her first term rule in the courts in the neighbouring Karnataka state.

After the 2006 assembly elections, O. Panneerselvam was elected the AIADMK legislature party leader and hence the Leader of the Opposition in the assembly, after she decided not to attend the assembly except if "absolutely necessary". However she, by virtue of her strong control over her party, was considered to be the de-facto leader of the opposition in the state. Later that month when all the attending AIADMK MLAs were suspended, she started attending the assembly. She was elected the legislature party leader and now leads the opposition in the assembly.

Influence

In the era of coalition politics, she wields powerful influence both at the federal and the regional level. Over the years, her party has been a part of both the ruling and opposition alliances at various points in time. She was instrumental in toppling the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 1998, though it seemed to backfire on her as she lost the following Parliamentary elections. Her political fortunes took a downswing in the 2004 elections where her party was virtually wiped out in elections to the Union Parliament, and considerably diminished her influence over national politics.

Allegations of oppressive Style of Governance

Her detractors consider her style of Governance oppressive. The following incidents are a few which are popularly held against her, to justify such claims.

1. In 2003, teachers of government-run educational institutions and employees of the state government declared an indefinite strike, demanding the repeal of an act that reduced their pension benefits. Jayalalithaa's government adopted a defiant stance . A hurriedly enacted legislation enabled her to declare the strike illegal as it prevented the "maintenance of essential services" and terminate the services of the striking employees, numbering around 170,000. There were widespread allegations of hyperaction and witch-hunt, with the police being pressed into action to target striking individuals, sometimes to the extent of storming their residences and arresting them on flimsy grounds. The High Court and the Supreme Court of India, responding to appeals, ruled the government action legitimate but ordered the constitution of a three member Committee of High Court Judges to consider the appeals of the employees on an individual basis. The committee, deliberating over a period of six months, ordered the reinstatement of all but a little less than 4,000 employees, and recommended minor punishment to around 6,000 employees. Later, after her party suffered, Jayalalithaa reversed the decisions and reinstated all the dismissed employees and withdrew the penalties imposed, despite the Committee of Judges’ findings. This is widely believed to be in response to her defeat in the national elections in May, 2004.
2. Allegations have been raised over the veracity of claims in various criminal proceedings filed during her Chief Ministership against her detractors, including her estranged son V. N. Sudhakaran, accusing them of possessing narcotics.
3. In 1992, Chandralekha, an IAS officer and the chairperson of state owned Industrial Development Corporation was brutally assaulted on the roads of Chennai, and acid thrown at her face. It has been alleged that this was due to her refusal to toe Jayalalithaa's line in the affair of disinvestment in SPIC, a joint sector company. An arrested suspect in this case, Surla, alleged that he did it under instructions from Jayalalithaa and her close aide Sasikala Natarajan.
4. On 30 May, 1995, R. Shanmugha Sundaram, an advocate belonging to DMK, Jayalithaa's rival party was grievously injured in an attack with deadly weapons by a gang of goons led by notorious rowdy Welding Kumar at his house. Around this time, Shanmugha Sundaram was preparing a petition to be filed in the high court, on behalf of another DMK advocate Alandur Bharathi, against the purchase of TANSI land by Jayalalithaa and Sasikala. The prime land in Guindy in Chennai was purchased by Jaya Publications in which Ms Jayalalitha and Mrs Natarajan were partners. The incident happened during Jayalalitha's tenure as Chief Minister from 1991-1996. Allegations have been levelled against Jayalalithaa for a direct involvement in instigating the attack.
5. She has constantly been at the heart of controversy over the numerous defamation suits filed against opposition leaders and members of the press, using privileges available to her in the official capacity and by using government funds. She has been accused of being highly intolerant to negative criticism.
6. The action against Jayendra Saraswathi during her Chief-ministership, has been condemned in some quarters as being hyperactive and invited condemnation from the Supreme Court of India.
7. Action initiated against the then opposition leader and the current Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi and union ministers Murasoli Maran and T.R.Baalu all belonging to DMK, in 2004 was one of the most controversial incidents during her reign. The arrests were widely believed to be motivated by political vendetta and made over flimsy grounds. The arrests were captured by video journalists attached to Sun TV, a popular Tamil television channel sympathetic to DMK, and were telecasted to a wide audience. Footage from the coverage indicated manhandling of the leaders, and this led to widespread criticism of the action.

Corruption Charges

She has been accused and charged with corruption charges in several cases. Investigation by authorities into her financial affairs have allegedly revealed wealth which is disproportionate to her known income sources. The litigation filed in this case is still under judicial review. Since she returned to governance before the investigations could be completed, the Supreme Court of India transferred the disproportionate wealth case from Tamilnadu to Bangalore Court in neighbouring Karnataka state observing that public confidence in the fairness of trial was being seriously undermined and great prejudice appeared to have been caused to the prosecution which could culminate in miscarriage of justice.

When her conviction in the TANSI case was overruled in 2003, citing lack of evidence, the Supreme Court of India observed that Jayalalithaa should "atone" by "answering her conscience." and also asked her to return the land to the organization. She returned the land purchased by questionable means in 2003.

Allegations of Extravagant Lifestyle

Jayalalithaa's detractors draw attention to the 1995 wedding of her adopted son as an example of her extravagant show of wealth. Guinness Book of Records records the ensuing wedding banquet as the largest ever. TIME magazine observed that the ceremony was "a vulgar display of wealth". Her huge collection of clothes and apparels, discovered during a search operation at her residence, soon after she fell from power in 1996, has been compared with that of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines. Media evidence showed vast quantities of footwear and empty suitcases in her possession. She is also alleged to have purchased or built many houses during her first regime between 1991 and 1996.

The disproportionate assets investigation revealed a huge jewellery collection, which became the subject of income tax scrutiny as she was suspected of tax evasion and money laundering. She claimed in her testimony under oath that the jewellery was gifted to her mother Sandhya by the Maharaja of Mysore.

Awards and Degrees

In 1991, the University of Madras honoured her by conferring the degree of Doctor of Literature. In 1992, the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University conferred the degree of Doctor of Science on her. In 1993, the Madurai Kamaraj University conferred the degree of Doctor of Letters on her. In 2003, the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University conferred the degree of Doctor of Science on her and the Bharathidasan University conferred the degree of Doctor of Letters on her.

References

1. Jayalalithaa elected Tamil Nadu Assembly Opposition Leader

External links

• Profile on website of Tamil Nadu Government
• Profile at Nilacharal
• Profile by BBC (1999)
• BBC News article - Jayalalitha returns to power (dated March 2, 2002)
• rediff.com Special on J. Jayalalithaa
• BBC Hardtalk interview
• Guinness record for largest wedding banquet
• Judgement by the Supreme Court of India advising her to atone for her misdeeds and requiring her to return the Government property to the Government
• BBC - Controversial life of Jayalalitha

• 1948 births
• Living people
• Tamil politicians
• Indian politicians
• Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu
• Indian actors
• Tamil actors
• Actor-politicians