Background and career
Jayalalithaa Jayaram (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016), popularly known as Amma, was an Indian politician and actress who served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for six terms spanning more than fourteen years between 1991 and 2016. She was the longest-serving General Secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and regarded as one of the most influential politicians of post-independence India.
Before entering politics, Jayalalithaa rose to prominence as a leading film actress in the mid-1960s, earning recognition for her versatility and classical dance skills. In 1982, she joined the AIADMK, founded by her frequent co-star M. G. Ramachandran (MGR), who was the Chief Minister. She rose swiftly within the party to become its Propaganda Secretary and was elected to the Rajya Sabha. After MGR's death in 1987, she outmanoeuvred the rival faction led by his widow V. N. Janaki to emerge as the party's sole leader.
Jayalalithaa first became Chief Minister in 1991, making her Tamil Nadu's youngest at the time. Her tenures were marked by strong centralisation of power, an extensive social-welfare agenda—most visibly the Amma-branded subsidised canteens, bottled water, salt, and cement—and an at-times ruthless posture towards political opponents. Her career was punctuated by serious legal difficulties: the DMK government led by M. Karunanidhi, her bête noire, filed 28 corruption cases against her after the 1996 election, and she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case in 2014. Each time, she was eventually acquitted and returned to office. In the 2016 assembly election, she became the first Tamil Nadu chief minister since MGR in 1984 to be voted back into power.
In September 2016, Jayalalithaa fell severely ill and was hospitalized for 75 days before passing away from cardiac arrest on 5 December 2016 and became the first female chief minister in India to die in office. She never married and had no children. Critics accused her of fostering a personality cult and demanding absolute loyalty from party legislators and ministers.
