The Amma Of All Questions

As the AIADMK faithful wait uncertainly for word on Jayalalithaa’s health, the state continues to function smoothly. But an uncertain future looms. What next for TN?

- Amarnath K. Menon

Even as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa battles health worries in an intensive care facility at Chennai’s Apollo Hospital, she spawns uncertainty about the future of her AIADMK, and a churn in the state’s politics. That’s because the party itself, to gender-proof the cliche, is a ‘one-woman show’, the energy and charisma all coming from herself. Her only major rival in the state is the DMK, headed by the wheelchair-bound nonagenarian M. Karunanidhi.

The irony is it was Karunanidhi’s demand that the government release images of the CM (she’s been hospitalised since September 22) and a statement about the state of her health that fuelled the recent spate of courtesy calls by leaders of rival parties. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, Union urban affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, and even the DMK’s own M.K. Stalin, leader of the opposition in the TN assembly and MK’s third son, they all called at the hospital to inquire about her health.

Outside, her loyalists maintain vigil by turn in groups, while a coterie of Jayalalithaa acolytes, steered by her chief advisor, retired chief secretary Sheela Balakrishnan, ensures that the administration functions smoothly from Fort St George (home of the legislative assembly and the state secretariat) in Amma’s distinctive style, leaving few gaps in governance. The writ over the ruling AIADMK is managed by her personal aide, Sasikala Natarajan, who runs a cabal that has spread far and wide. She has loyalists working as special assistants doubling as moles in the offices of ministers and has enlisted others in the bureaucracy to operate what some administrators derisively call the “Mannargudi machine”, referring to the place where Sasikala and her family hail from.