The Queen Retreats

According to sources, senior leaders have tried, in vain, to persuade Jayalalitha to sit down with the party executive and discuss the poor showing of the AIADMK. Partymen believe that the former chief minister has so far shied away from any postelection party meeting for fear that her coterie, dominated by friend and confidante Sasikala Natarajan, would stand exposed. There is a growing feeling in the AIADMK that the coterie and its actions are responsible for tarnishing the image of the party.

With Jayalalitha being very defensive about Sasikala and her refusal to call any party conclave, the AIADMK, the only party in the Opposition, is finding it impossible to go ahead with the business of electing its leader in the legislature. Indeed, her intransigence has led to a revolt of sorts and there is a section in the AIADMK which believes that the time has come to look beyond Jayalalitha in the interest of the party. This explains the anti-Sasikala and Jayalalitha slogans being raised outside the party headquarters in Madras by the irate AIADMK cadre force.

On May 15, the AIADMK leaders first faced the wrath of the cadre. When former revenue minister, S.D. Somasundaram, very much a part of Jayalalitha's inner circle, came to the party office, he was received by slogan-shouting partymen. Their ire was directed against him as well as Sasikala. All efforts to pacify them failed and the formerminister was even roughed up. Photographers present at the party office were asked to leave and forbidden from clicking. "We lost because of you press fellows," former minister Indirakumari screamed.

The photographs were not taken but the message was clear. The party wanted its leaders to act. Some of the slogans raised were quite telling: 'How can you betray one crore people for the sake of one greedy family' and 'Send Sasikala out of Poes Garden and convene the general council of the party.' There were also slogans in support of S. Thirunavukkarasu, one of the AIADMK candidates who won the elections.

When news was conveyed to Jayalalitha about the irate crowd outside the party office awaiting her arrival, she promptly cancelled her visit. This further agitated the cadres. Said a leader who lost his deposit in the elections: "You (Jayalalitha) cannot cold-shoulder us. We were the people who sent you to Fort St George (the seat of power in Tamil Nadu). The people who are now with you are trying to send you to Krishann-ampettai (the funeral ground in Madras)."

In the melee, only one man remained calm—S. Thirunavukkarasu. The crowds greeted him with cheers and some even called him the "saviour of the party." To the horror of Jayalalitha's supporters and members of her erstwhile cabinet, the crowd suddenly started chanting slogans inviting Thirunavukkarasu to take over the party and carry forward the unfinished agenda of MGR.The AIADMK leader is known to be media-friendly but is not willing to spell out his plans. But those close to him are quite certain that Thirunavukkarasu may not find it difficult to displace Jayalalitha if she continues to alienate herself from her party.

No one in the party is clear about the former chief minister's strategy. Neither has she spoken to anyone in the party about her plans. The only occasion when she has broken her silence is in an interview to a national daily in which she criticised everyone from the Chief Election Commissioner to the local and national press for her defeat. She also made it clear that she would remain in Madras and had no plans to move to Hyderabad as was being speculated.

However, point out AIADMK leaders, her being in Madras will not help if she refuses to step out of Poes Garden and begins interacting with party workers. But Jayalalitha seems to find it difficult to accept the reality that she is the leader of a party which has fallen from grace and this has led to the speculation that a change of leadership in the AIADMK is inevitable.