Convict Queen
Though AIADMK leader Jayalalitha was debarred from contesting the elections on grounds of her conviction in a corruption case, she was sworn in as chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Will her aggressive game plan work? And should popular mandate overrule judicial verdicts?

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Looking East
Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to Malaysia may have achieved little on Quattrochi's extradition and India's greater ties with ASEAN, but it showed there is more to their bilateral relations than these two issues.

Mother's Day
Stalinist methods played a vital role in the humiliating finale of M. Karunanidhi's dynastic ambition.

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STATES: TAMIL NADU

Mother's Day

How Karunanidhi's Stalinist methods played an important role in Jayalalitha's massive victory and in the humiliating finale of his own dynastic ambition

By Arun Ram

When the electronic voting machines blinked on that fateful Sunday, they were actually signalling a devastating landslide. In no time the ground beneath Muthuvel Karunanidhi's feet disappeared. Soaring over the debris of the DMK was the triumphant czarina of the AIADMK, Dr Puratchi Thalaivi J. Jayalalitha. And Governor Fathima Beevi acted faster than the voting machines-the coronation was swift and smooth. The Jayalalitha fan was exuberant: "The King is dead. Long live the Queen!"

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Jayalalitha shares the victory with AIADMK supporters

May 13 brought in the happiest Mother's Day the AIADMK ever had in several years. Amma's coalition bagged 196 of the 234 seats, making a mockery of every prediction about a cliffhanger. In her first post-victory statement Jayalalitha said it was a vote against the Karunanidhi government's bad administration. It was more than that. Everybody, perhaps even Jayalalitha herself, failed to recognise a groundswell of sympathy and anti-incumbency feeling. For during the campaign her main rhetorical target was not the government but the ruling party. Much before her electoral disqualification, Jayalalitha said, "There are people at work trying to stop me from contesting." The moment she was disqualified, she named the people: "It's the handiwork of Karunanidhi to make his son M.K. Stalin the chief minister." And that seems to have paid off.

Karunanidhi admits that the sympathy factor was at work. "I consider the verdict a reward for my government's achievements. People have somehow believed Jayalalitha's allegation that we had conspired to bar her from contesting. Even after the Election Commission announced that it was a legal decision, the false propaganda has won," he said. The DMK's overuse of the corruption charges didn't work. The voters exhibited a kind of corruption fatigue. Sun TV continued to beam Jayalalitha's legendary footwear and wardrobe collection, but it boomeranged. For Jayalalitha went around the state wearing no jewellery, further reinforcing her image as a victim of state-sponsored harassment.

However, Karunanidhi's biggest mistake was projecting son Stalin as his successor. Despite Stalin's satisfactory performance as the Chennai mayor, the results show that people were not ready to accept him as his father's successor. He won this time by a margin of 7,000 votes against his 1996 margin of 44,870 votes.

That the DMK fared badly even in the urban constituencies, including its perceived fortress of Chennai, reveals that the Amma wave was everywhere. In fact, nothing has been going the DMK way ever since the PMK's desertion to join the Jayalalitha camp. Then at the last minute the MDMK walked out, complaining of unfair treatment of alliance partners. Former health minister Arcot N. Veerasamy, one of the few DMK ministers who survived the rout, disputes that the MDMK was responsible for the defeat of the DMK. "Even if they had been with us, the result would not have been too different," he reasons.

Also, TMC rebel P. Chidambaram, who the DMK hoped would neutralise the Vaiko effect, was not of much help. "I definitely didn't expect such a result. The people are simply inexplicable. Such a verdict is not good for the state," he told INDIA TODAY. The Dalit parties, on whom the DMK depended heavily, too performed badly. The Dalit Panthers of India leader Tirumavalavan is the only Dalit leader to have won.

The TMC, the PMK and the Congress have made major gains by riding piggyback on Amma. The PMK, which was routed in its self-proclaimed stronghold of Pondicherry, got 20 seats in Tamil Nadu. The TMC won 23 seats, the prize its leader G.K. Moopanar got for climbing down from his dream of Kamaraj rule to the reality of the MGR legacy. While the Congress improved its tally from zero to seven, the CPI(M) bagged six seats and the CPI five. Though their vote share has come down, the left parties cannot be unhappy with the results.

Back in the saddle, Jayalalitha is already talking administration. "The Public Distribution System is in a shambles. The new Government will revive it. Closed spinning mills will be reopened. Safe drinking water will be my priority," she said after being sworn in as chief minister. Karunanidhi's last battle has become Jayalalitha's last laugh.

MetroScape

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The Madhya Pradesh governor orders a CBI inquiry into a land allotment by the chief minister to the Nai Duniya group, kicking off a constitutional crisis. INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Neeraj Mishra reports in
Conflict Of Interest.