Chennai:
After her thumping comeback in the Tamil Nadu Assembly Elections, AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa will be sworn in as the next Chief Minister of the state today. The actor-turned-politician met Governor SS Barnala on Sunday morning and staked claim to form the government.
Jayalalithaa will have 33 ministers in her team, with more than half new faces, as she begins her third term in the Chief Minister's chair.
The swearing-in ceremony will take place at the Madras University's Centenary Hall at 12:15 pm, which is the same place she took oath for her first stint in 1991.
Speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister designate made her priorities clear. "Our priority will be to restore law and order in the state. We have got to get the state's economy back on the rails. People of Tamil Nadu won't have to worry about their safety."
"Sonia Gandhi congratulated me on the phone," she said, parrying questions on the Congress president's reported invitation to her.
In the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, Jayalalithaa along with her allies won 199 of the state's 234 assembly seats - a skyscraper of a victory in a bitterly-fought political landscape. During her election campaign, Jayalalithaa had predicted that with her allies, she would win upwards of 185 of the 234 seats in the Tamil Nadu assembly. She has proved that was not just political bluster.