14.5.11

The return of Jayalalitha ....

AFter a month long wait the election results are in ....Didi effectively tramped out the left in Bengal and the going was neck to neck in nearby Kerala and faraway Assam also voted on largely expected lines .What surprised many ,mostly national observers and psephologists was the results in Tamilnadu .While many had predicted that Amma definitely had the edge against DMK ,nobody could have really guessed the magnitude of this victory .Amma after effectively completing her hibernation in Kodanadu hardly a few months back, woke up in the Chief Minister's seat on Friday the 13th of May .

After lying low for months ,she made but few rare appearances in the Assembly ,a few more in public and flew back to Kodanadu ,only visiting Chennai now and then.Some said it was astrology ,some said that was Vastu ,others quoted health reasons but no one was on the know of what she did there all these long years ...Of course we did hear her various statements to the press which appeared with preprogrammed regularity ..(All that they needed to do to fill Jaya TV news was to read these statements .)Even from her Kodanadu estate she gave that one bombshell of an interview which sent the 2G cases accelerating ...which was but one memorable event in these five long years ....

These five years sans power, many of her old colleagues have deserted her for more lucrative DMK quarters .Those who chose to remain (how happy they must be now ) were busy carrying out her orders which were passed on mostly through the media .True they kept making quite some noise in the name of protest demonstrations here and there and also kept walking out of the Assembly when they were not forcibly evicted ..AND then the meeting in Kovai happened ...And from there it has been history or should we say HERstory ....

And then it was enter the Captain and exit Vaiko and many hiccoughs later the alliance was in place ..She did tour the state (in a campaign vehicle which must be the envy of many a politician ) making rather uninteresting monotonous speeches which might not have excited even her die hard loyalists .The campaign completed ,polling over ,she went back to Kodanadu in complete abandon as only she can .She descended into hot and happening Chennai only a few days back and what a welcome it has been .

As I drove to work this morning, all down the road Amma was beaming at me from all the newsmagazine stands and why shoudn't she ?