CHENNAI: The year 2011 was more significant for the AIADMK, than all other political parties in the State. For the party, it was literally one of spectacular success. In December 2010, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa predicted her party’s victory in the Assembly elections, which came true in the next four months. The AIADMK-led front registered a landslide victory by securing 203 seats out of 234, while archrival DMK lost the opportunity to become the main Opposition party. Within five months of romping home to power, the AIADMK faced the local body elections, where too it made a mark.In its 40-year history, the AIADMK never tasted such a massive victory in the elections to the local bodies. The party secured nearly 10,000 posts of local bodies including all the 10 municipal corporations. Significantly, the AIADMK won the Chennai Corporation for the first time in its history.Though the general trend is that local body election results normally go in favour of the ruling party, this time, the AIADMK’s spectacular win became very significant as the party made this achievement possible when all the major alliance parties which were part of the front till five months ago, left it for the local body polls. Again, without the alliance of the AIADMK, all the erstwhile allies fared poorly in the elections. Jayalalithaa’s third stint as the Chief Minister of the State has witnessed a sea change in the administration of the government as well as the party. For the first time in the history of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa has created a separate department for implementing the welfare schemes, particularly those in fulfilment of the electoral promises of the AIADMK. The first seven months of the AIADMK regime have witnessed rapid pace in implementation of these schemes as Jayalalithaa had assured the public that she would fulfil all her poll promises within one and a half years. At the fag end of the year, the party witnessed a surprising development - the ouster of VK Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s close aide for around three decades and 15 others, who are relatives of both Sasikala and her husband M Natarajan. The party cadre welcomed the move with overwhelming joy that they performed a milk abhisekam to the portrait of Jayalalithaa as a mark of thanksgiving for sending out Sasikala and others out of Poes Garden.However, doubts were lingering in the minds of the party cadre about the possible comeback of Sasikala & co. But, Jayalalithaa dispelled their doubts categorically at the general council meeting of the AIADMK held on December 30. Without naming Sasikala and others, Jayalalithaa said their ouster from the party was final and cadre who have any truck with them would not be pardoned. Jayalalithaa said that after the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the AIADMK would determine the next prime ministerial candidate, and asked the party cadre to work diligently in the coming days to achieve this goal. With this statement of her’s, Jayalalithaa has laid the road map for party cadre to make giant strides in national politics.
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