J. Jayalalithaa

Jayalalithaa was born in February 1948 in present-day Karnataka. Her father, Jayaram, died during her childhood; her mother, Vedavalli, acted under the name Sandhya. Jayalalithaa attended school in Bengaluru and Chennai before entering films. Her acting career included Tamil, Telugu and Kannada cinema, and she trained in classical dance. Among her screen collaborators was M.G. Ramachandran, who later became her political mentor.

Jayalalithaa joined the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1982. She entered the Rajya Sabha in 1984 and was elected to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from Bodinayakanur in 1989. Following M.G. Ramachandran’s death and the subsequent contest for leadership within the party, she emerged as its leader. In 1989 she became the first woman Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly.

Jayalalithaa first became Chief Minister in 1991 and served until 1996. She returned to the office in 2001, again from 2002 to 2006, from 2011 to 2014, and from 2015 until her death in December 2016. Her administrations were associated with welfare programmes and state development initiatives. In cultural education, her government established the Tamil Nadu Music and Fine Arts University in November 2013.

In 2014, a trial-court conviction in a disproportionate-assets case led to Jayalalithaa’s disqualification from office. The Karnataka High Court overturned that conviction in May 2015, and she returned as Chief Minister. After her death, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court judgment in February 2017, while holding that the appeals concerning her had abated because she had died. The Court rejected Karnataka’s review petitions in April 2017.