Incumbent Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa has broken a 27-year-old jinx. She is poised to lead the AIADMK to its second consecutive victory in the assembly polls. Tamil Nadu has alternated between the Dravidian heavyweights, the DMK and the AIADMK, since 1989.
Jayalalithaa’s mentor and founder of the AIADMK, MG Ramachandran, was the last Chief Minister to be re-elected in 1984. MGR had won three straight assembly elections – in 1977, 1980 and in 1984, his last. In fact, the matinee-idol-turned-politician won his last election from a hospital bed in Brooklyn, New York.
“The outcome of the 1984 Assembly elections stood testimony to MGR’s immense popularity which had been boosted by the sympathy wave. From his hospital bed abroad he led his AIADMK to a smashing victory, bagging 132 seats in a House of 234; he also helped the AlADMK’s ally, the Congress, win an unexpected 62 seats, the highest after the party surrendered power to the DMK in 1967,” writes Frontline in its January 1988 obituary.
The AIADMK-Congress combine was also able to win sympathy votes together following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Prior to MGR, the DMK won consecutively in 1967 and in 1971. Karunanidhi took over as Chief Minister in 1969 after CN Annadurai died in office.
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