Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa passed away at 11:30 pm on Monday at the age of 68 at Chennai’s Apollo hospital. Her death comes a day after she suffered a cardiac arrest on Sunday.
The hospital issued a statement confirming her demise:
Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22 after she complained of fever and dehydration.
On Sunday the party had claimed that she was well and would be returning home soon. However, later that night the party announced that she had suffered a cardiac arrest.
Jayalalitha stormed back into power in Tamil Nadu in the Assembly elections in May with her party AIADMK winning 134 seats out of 232.
She created history by becoming the only chief minister to be elected for a second consecutive term in over three decades in Tamil Nadu.
The 68-year-old AIADMK supremo, known as ‘Puratchi Thalaivi’ (Revolutionary Leader), has cemented her image as a fighter despite challenges that haunted her in the form of corruption cases forcing her to quit twice, only to make a comeback.
A teen starlet who made her Tamil cinema debut in CV Sridhar-directed ‘Vennira Aadai’ (white dress) in 1965, Jayalalithaa became a popular actress and did 30 films alone with matinee idol MGR who later became her political mentor and in 1982 inducted her into AIADMK which he founded.
Though she had MG Ramachandran (MGR) as her mentor, she struggled in her initial days in the party and went on to became its general secretary, a post she has held since 1989.
She vowed in 1989 not to return to Assembly unless she is the Chief Minister.