Chennai: The obituary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the third largest party in the Indian Parliament, has been written about in a few newspaper articles and spoken of by some television pundits.

But events since September 22 — the day its now deceased party chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha was admitted to hospital — tell a very different story.

The obituary writers’ hurry has not been borne out by developments that have unfolded since then.

On the night of September 22, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha collapsed in her Poes Garden residence and was admitted to one of the best medical facilities in the capital Chennai — Apollo Hospitals.

She died on December 5, without naming a successor.

From the day of her admission at the hospital, the chief minister never met a member of her Cabinet.

Ever since, the state has been on some sort of an autopilot mode — some critical decisions, such as agreeing with the federal government’s scheme on electricity, and the all-India medical admissions — were made in such a way that the state government conceded ground to the Centre.

Earlier in the same month, Jayalalitha had written to the Centre asking it to reconsider both schemes.

Though the government — minus Jayalalitha — took these decisions, it didn’t buckle under.

In effect, it was a jolt for all those who thought the government would be akin to a headless chicken after Jayalalitha was hospitalised.

Some of its decisions went against what the party supremo had wanted but the state Cabinet, in its wisdom, decided that the best way forward was to have the federal government in Delhi in its corner.

In fact, ever since October 12, when the state’s governor-in-charge, C. Vidyasagar Rao stated that finance minister O. Panneerselvam would take over the portfolios held by the hospitalised chief minister, this streak is evident in decision making at all levels of governance: choose the path of least resistance in Centre-state relations.

Though the governor was aware of Jayalalitha’s condition, he did not push for a new chief minister; he merely reallocated the portfolios held by her.

This was keeping in mind the peculiar dynamic that acts out in the party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, which was founded by another film actor, M.G. Ramachandran in 1972.

Ever since Jayalalitha, also a former actor, and a protégé of M.G. Ramachandran, assumed office as chief minister for the first time in 1991, she has systematically thrown out anyone capable of posing a challenge to her position.

By the end of that tenure, in 1996, it was apparent that Jayalalitha was the AIADMK. No one else mattered.

She was whimsical, but there was a method in the madness: all castes — the mainstay to garner popular votes for any political party in India — were catered to, in each of these cabinet reshuffles.

Jayalalitha led the AIADMK to power in the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2016 State Assembly polls, and was defeated in the 1996 and the 2006 polls.

In the two and a half decades that she has held sway as the undisputed leader of the AIADMK, she had made sure that there was only one leader: all the others were expendable. But in the 2016 polls, she granted seats to some of those whom she considered had been “traitors” to the party’s cause, and later justified it by saying that she had her compulsions to do so.

Having been in power for 15-plus years, the AIADMK today is a party that has proven its organisation mettle repeatedly.

The first test for the party after the hospitalisation of the chief minister, was the bypolls to the three Legislative Assembly seats, held on November 19. The opposition unleashed a vicious campaign, which highlighted the that the chief minister would never come back to office, and that there’d be a change in reigns at the seat of state power, the State Secretariat at Fort St. George, by January.

Signs of maturity

But the AIADMK won all the three seats with massive majorities. That was the second indication (the first was the decision making) that both the party and the government would continue to function, even minus Jayalalitha. The government also threw open a slew of infrastructure projects across Tamil Nadu without fanfare, earning it some brownie points with the people.

The third sign of maturity in the AIADMK was visible after the death of their beloved leader. There was no sign of panic; no venting of emotion after her death at 11-30pm on December 5. (The death was announced at 12-10am on December 6, and the time of death was given as 11-30pm)

The whole phase was very carefully and skilfully negotiated, with a little help from a senior federal minister.

Though there was a minor mix-up in calling for a meeting of members of the State legislature at around 6pm, this was quickly corrected by cancelling the meeting, and announcing the news upfront.

There is a set of procedural requirements before announcing the death of a constitutional functionary in India, and the time between 6pm and 11-30pm was used to complete these formalities.

When the Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) belonging to party convened at the party headquarters in Chennai, just past 11-30pm, each one was aware that their leader had passed on. Even as television cameras zoomed in and out of them, not one person displayed any overt emotion — a rarity in public life in Tamil Nadu where every tragedy is acted out in the open.

The announcement of death past midnight was deliberate, and was done to ensure that there were very few people out on the streets.

Violence on the streets following the death of any leader has been endemic in most parts of India, including Tamil Nadu. But the swiftness of deploying the police force across the State, yet again showed the maturity of the State Cabinet in dealing with the volatile situation.

In fact, there was no hitch at any level: the police were given a free hand, the place where Jayalalitha’s body was to be kept in state was decided early, and the place of burial too, was selected well ahead.

All the leaders across the country were informed, and they had smooth passage to Rajaji Hall, where the body was kept to pay homage. The enormous logistics surrounding this mammoth exercise was handled with an expertise that only comes in with long years of governance. All these were handled by the State government, with some help from the federal government.

Ministers, who understand the workings of the government, the compulsions of caste politics in Tamil Nadu, and who are acutely aware that in their unity lies their strength, now populate the top echelons of the government and the party. For the first time since it was founded, the AIADMK, the people’s party, ironically, stands to actually become a democratic, people-led, people-centric party.

— The writer is a Chennai-based journalist with Frontline magazine, who has reported, among others, on Dravidian politics for about two decades

Sasikala, the power behind the throne

Right now, OPS (as Panneerselvam is better known), who quietly held cabinet meetings with Jayalalitha’s photograph prominently displayed in front of him and the chief minister’s seat conspicuously vacant, is the face of the party. A tea-shop owner from Periyakulam in south Central Tamil Nadu who was hand-picked first for the post of Municipal Chairman of the small town, he was literally catapulted to the big stage when Jayalalitha inducted him into her Cabinet in 2001. There’s been no looking back for him since.

But OPS is not the one taking the decisions. For that he has been largely dependent on Sasikala, Jayalalitha’s friend who has been with her through thick and thin. Sasikala is an extra constitutional power in the government, but no minister thinks twice about consulting her on any issue. In fact, most have been leaving decision making to this person, with no known administrative or decision making skills, and who has barely had any formal education.

For a while now, Sasikala has been running affairs and OPS has been the face of the AIADMK’s governance. This situation will continue since the AIADMK is in power with a very comfortable majority — 134 out of 234 seats.

The third important face in the party is the Deputy Speaker in the Lok Sabha, M. Thambidurai. He has been in the party since Jayalalitha took over reigns, and has served as minister at the state and federal level, apart from serving as a party functionary. His importance is because he is from a different intermediate caste than that of Sasikala and Paneerselvam. It will be in the interests of the party to make him one of the prominent faces.

Soon after the death of Jayalalitha, Sasikala’s husband, Natarajan, and her entire family — all who were thrown out by Jayalalitha — were at the hospital and Rajaji Hall. This has worried some senior party men, and even independent observers. Derisively named ‘Mannargudi Mafia’ (all of them hail from a small central Tamil Nadu town of that name), the involvement of these elements in running of the party will lead to some serious friction within. There are many other faces that will become important in the course of the next few weeks: prominent among them will be the patriarch Panruti Ramachandran and C. Ponnaiyan (who was Jayalalitha’s finance minister for a term) and Sengottaiyan, a chief strategist, who is invaluable to the party. Young Turks such as Senthil Balaji (who was Minister for a term) and P. Thangamani (who is currently a Minister), are important young, energetic faces, who will make a huge difference to the party in times of a crisis.