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Rana Ayyub is an award-winning investigative journalist and political writer. She is working on a book on Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will be published in 2015.)
On September 27, when Special Court judge Justice John Michael D'Cunha delivered a landmark verdict in a disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa, debates were conducted across the media on whether this was the end of the 66-year-old heavyweight's political career. "Amma", as she is fondly known by her supporters in the South, was denied bail yet again on Tuesday, sending shock waves through the AIADMK, which was still reeling under the hard-to-face fact that their leader, who enjoyed a cult status, would be barred from contesting elections for the next ten years.
This was the result of one of the path-breaking Supreme Court rulings which enforced that convicted lawmakers could not continue in office.
Jayalithaa's conviction is the result of an 18-year-old case first filed by maverick leader Subramanian Swamy who was then the head of the Janata Party and whose acrimonious relationship with Jayalalithaa is well-documented. Swamy, who has on many occasions during government formation lobbied strongly to be the PM, had once famously remarked "Agar meri kundli mein hoga toh main pradhanmantri banoonga". Swamy, who has at the level of local politics not been averse to allying with Amma in the state, had well-disguised his political ambition attempt to dislodge both the DMK patriarch Karunanidhi and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa by presenting his agenda as a fight against corruption.
In 1996, Swamy struck a deal with foe-in-chief Jayalalithaa to withdraw her candidate for the post of Madras Mayor, for which Karunanidhi's son, MK Stalin, was a strong contender. In a surprise move, Jayalalithaa accepted Swamy's call for a united fight to the extent of supporting her bitter rival and the state unit chief of the Janata Party, Chandralekha.
After Swamy, it was the DMK which pursued the case against Jayalalithaa which led to the historic verdict on her conviction. The Karnataka High Court then set another milestone by refusing bail to her, calling corruption "a human right violation" which led to economic imbalance, a crime whose punishment was to set a precedence.
Does Jayalalithaa's conviction in a case which will have implications in the political narrative of Tamil Nadu finally end the journey of the AIADMK? The verdict is a huge win for the judiciary, which has been accused of going slow in the justice process with lack of reforms being a major obstacle. With senior politicians like Madhu Koda, Om Prakash Chautala, Laloo Yadav and now Jayalalithaa convicted in corruption cases, and ministers in the previous government including Suresh Kalmadi and A Raja serving jail terms, it brings in a sense of optimism vis-a-vis Indian politics.
But the inherent nature of Indian polity which has on many occasions subverted judicial verdicts should lend a ray of hope to Jayalalithaa, who cannot be written off from mainstream politics, because electoral politics in India has never been slave to court convictions - and who better than Jayalalithaa's counsel and Law Minister in the Vajpayee government, Ram Jethmalani, to vouch for it.
Jethmalani has been witness to some of the most significant trials and convictions in the country; he has in the last few years been the counsel to BJP President and ex Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, DMK leaders A Raja and Kanimozhi, Sahara group honcho Subrata Roy and now Jayalalithaa who is entitled to optimism, going by the track record of her counsel's high-profile cases. Amit Shah who was sent behind bars on charges of extortion, corruption and extra-judicial killings in Gujarat had to step down from the Modi government after the CBI charged him with kidnapping and murder.
But Shah who is out on bail in two cases is now the star campaigner for the BJP and is now second-in-command of the ruling government as Modi's confidante and Party President.
Laloo Yadav, who was convicted in the fodder scam, aligned with ex-rival Nitish Kumar to successfully win by-elections in Bihar. His wife Rabri Devi had run the state as proxy Chief Minister when Laloo was forced to resign on corruption charges. Laloo was later made the Union Railways Minister. Former Telecom Minister A Raja and parliamentarian and Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi who went behind bars in the telecom scam are out on bail and active participants in Tamil Nadu's political maneuverings.
Jayalalithaa, considered one of the most manipulative and astute politicians in the country who, like many of her contemporaries has bartered ideology for power, understands this facet of Indian politics and has used it to her advantage when she was convicted in September 2001 in the Tansi land case and was forced to step down. The Supreme Court had then too ruled that she could not continue as Chief Minister of the state after being convicted. But within five months, Amma was back as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after being acquitted in the case.
This time too, Amma, arguably the shrewdest of the troika of India's most powerful women politicians, is playing her cards with the precision unique to her. Her proxy, O Panneerselvam, who has now taken over as the Chief Minister has ensured that the lady who has followers waiting to commit themselves to extremes at the slightest indication, runs the government with deft handling by her lieutenants.
At the national level, Jayalalithaa's AIADMK is the third-largest party which decimated the DMK to win 37 out of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state. Some say that when she boycotted PM Modi's swearing-in ceremony to protest against the presence of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, she had well anticipated her conviction; many insist that her decision to not be a part of the government was influenced by this foresight.
With the pro Tamil card and the numbers presently in her favor, it is too early to write Jayalalithaa off India's political map.
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