Chennai Super- queen

The politician to emerge with flying colours, behind only the incoming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s spectacular national showing, is AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa. In fact, after shunning the Left as allies for their excessive seat demands and in deciding to swim alone against the tide of possible anti- incumbency and consolidation of minority votes in favour of her Dravidian rival DMK, the Tamil Nadu chief minister was clearly the star lady of the 2014 general election.

Jaya’s political gamble in seeking Tamil Nadu’s mandate on her own was calculated and her ambition of seeking a major role in the event of a fractured national verdict was stated quite openly. She may not have achieved her bigger ambition, but in getting such a clear verdict — winning 37 of 39 seats — she has consolidated her power base at home and is in an ideal position to press for development of her state, particularly in the power and infrastructure sectors, which an unfriendly Centre denied her unfairly in her three years in office in her latest term as CM.

While regional satraps like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s kin and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar were biting the dust, Jaya was able to counter the tide even more capably than Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik. The equations in the Rajya Sabha are such that the ruling BJP and NDA would still need support to pass legislation and Ms Jayalalithaa, who has extended her hand of support to an old friend in Modi, stands an excellent chance of extending her reign in the state elections of 2016.