A woman walks past a portrait of J. Jayalalithaa | Photo: ReutersNew Delhi: The most number of pictures of any single person in the Parliament is that of Jayalalithaa; not on the walls of the Parliament, but in the pockets of male MPs of the AIADMK. The easiest way to recognize party MPs is to look at their shirt pockets, you can see her face in them. There are even AIADMK MPs who put the picture of their leader on the table and then bow before it, just before attending to duties in the house.
After Narendra Modi, the name of Jayalalithaa is the one that finds the most number of mentions in the house. Whenever an MP makes a presentation, 'Puratchi Thalaivi' automatically finds mention in speeches, almost reflexively.
Before she attained the status of a cult, Jayalalithaa arrived at the parliament in 1984 as a Rajya Sabha MP. She was at seat 185, a position that she demanded because that was the seat of CN Annadurai. During her maiden speech, she mentioned the name of 'Anna' soon after she started the speech. While making the speech, the house broke into smiles when she said that Annadurai's speech had electrified the house, while hers was about electricity. That speech, made at the age of 36, received much applause and was commended by PM Indira Gandhi. Khushwant Singh said that the young politician was a healthy mix of brains and beauty.
In the six years in the house, Jaya made 19 speeches on various topics and she cited figures and poems in her speeches. She cited Kautilya the most and often ridiculed people within limits. Looking at Rajiv Gandhi, who was PM in those times, she said that a good administrator should be like a good gardener.
Jayalalithaa, who argued that English should be the national language, gave an example to prove her point. She cited cricket commentaries in Hindi, which according to her were distasteful. She also cited Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma who started to speak in Hindi with PM Indira Gandhi from space and then switched to English.
Jaya was always held at a distance by New Delhi who always saw her as a political bargainer because she always put a cost to her support for the government at the center. She always insisted that her party should have at least a minister of state in the Finance Ministry. Whenever her calculations went wrong, she withdrew her support upsetting plans of central leaders in power. Jaya withdrew support in 1993 to the Narasimha Rao government and the Vajpayee government in 1999. In 1998 she had provided support to the NDA after much bargaining. The next year, she had come to Delhi, announcing that she would withdraw support and also help create a new government at the center. She had then come prepared, with 48 suitcases, for an extended stay. She however, returned home in 20 days after having failed in her grand designs. Her alliance with Subramaniam Swamy did not provide much for her than a discussion over tea with Sonia Gandhi. While DMK went ahead and manipulated its alliances in Delhi, Jaya had to contend with supporting some Left leaders at Delhi. The Left leaders returned the gesture by occasionally visiting her with red roses.
Later, there were loud murmurs about Jaya supporting Modi, but Modi never needed to include her MPs in his plans because he did not have to play the number game to become PM.
When she came to meet the president, PM and finance minister in June, her chair from Tamil Nadu Bhavan too accompanied her because she wanted a bespoke chair due to her ailments. Delhi continued to provide no chair for her.
