Sasikala Natarajan, or Chinamma as she is popularly known, has been elected as the general secretary of Tamil Nadu’s AIADMK party, replacing J Jayalalitha, who died in December after prolonged illness. Let’s get to know the next female head of South Indian politics –
She was born in Mannargudi, a town in Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu. Though not rich but her family was the influential kallar community.
Her husband, M Natarajan, was working as a Public Relations officer in Tamil Nadu government on temporary basis. He was working closely with the then District Collector of Cuddalore V S Chandralekha, who in turn was close to J Jayalalithaa.
During the 1975 emergency, M Natarajan lost his job. Sasikala, in a bid to support the family, started a video rental service. Chandralekha introduced Sasikala to Jayalalithaa and the former began delivering video casettes to Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence.
Following her introduction to Jayalalithaa, Sasikala started recording all her public events. With time their friendship grew, and she would be seen alongside Jayalalithaa in all her rallies and other events.
She moved into Jayalaltihaa’s home in the late 1980s, at a time when she was fighting a political battle to wrest full control of the AIADMK after the death of her mentor and the party’s founder M G Ramachandran.
The duo became so close that Jayalalithaa called Sasikala her udanpiravaa sagodhari (sister not related through blood). Jayalalithaa also adopted Sasikala’s nephew VN Sudhakaran as her ‘foster son’.
Sasikala’s influence over the former actress was such that Sudhakaran’s wedding to the grand-daughter of Tamil cinema legend Sivaji Ganesan in 1995 made national headlines.
The event, billed as the ‘mother of all weddings’, became a spectacular public relations disaster for Jayalaltihaa, who was accused of using government resources for the grand wedding.
Analysts say that Jayalalithaa paid a heavy political price for this, and lost the 1996 assembly elections, including her own seat.
After the AIADMK lost the state elections, and Sasikala was arrested on orders of the DMK led government for violating the Foreign Exchange Reugulation Act (FERA). Jayalalithaa distanced herself from Sasikala following her arrest but things soon smoothed out.
The strain in the relationship came when in 2011 Sasikala was dramatically ousted from the Poes Garden residence. The move was taken by Jayalalithaa after she had reports of Sasikala and her clan plotting to seize power in the event of the former’s arrest on grounds of corruption charges.
The bitterness in their relationship was short lived and Sasikala soon returned to Jayalalithaa’s favour, though her family along with her husband remained deposed.
In 2014, a trial court found the duo guilty of corruption in the Tamsi land scam, which led to Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were arrested and sentenced to prison for four years. Jayalaithaa was fined Rs 100 crore in the case, while Sasikala got an Rs 10 crore slap.
The new party general secretary, Sasikala always has been a controversial figure and continues to be eyed with suspicion by party insiders as well as others. Having rarely made public statements, the Jayalalithaa confidante was still viewed as the person calling the shots in AIADMK.
Will Sasikala be able to get out of Jayalalithaa’s shadow? Will she be worthy of winning the trust of the people and her party? What are her political views and support group? Only time will tell.
