All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) (Tamil: அனைத்திந்திய அண்ணா திராவிட முன்னேற்ற கழகம்) is a state political party in the states of Tamil Nadu(Ruling party) and Puducherry, India. The party was founded by M. G. Ramachandran and is now headed by J. Jayalalithaa. The party headquarters is in Royapettah, Chennai, and was gifted to the party in 1986 by its former leader Janaki Ramachandran, wife of M. G. Ramachandran.
MGR eraThe party was founded in 1972 by M. G. Ramachandran (popularly known as MGR), a veteran star of the Tamil film industry and a popular politician, as a breakaway from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) led by M. Karunanidhi, the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu, owing to differences between the two. Relations between the two parties have been marked by mutual contempt.
Till the time MGR, also known as Puratchi Thalaivar (Revolutionary Leader), was alive, the AIADMK continued to be dominated by one man, despite the presence of formidable leaders like V. R. Nedunchezhiyan, R. M. Veerappan, K. V. Kandaswamy, S. Thirunavukkarasu, and J.Jayalalithaa.
The government led by the DMK, was dismissed by a Central promulgation after MGR filed a petition seeking enquiry into corruption charges. The Central Government was held by the Congress Party, an ally of the AIADMK. The party came to power in 1977 after trouncing DMK in the next elections to the legislative assembly in the state and MGR was named the Chief Minister. He was sworn in as chief minister of the state on June 30, 1977. In 1979, AIADMK became the first Dravidian and non-congress party to be part of the Union Cabinet, when two AIADMK Members of Parliament, Satyavani Muthu and Aravinda Bala Pajanor, joined the short-lived Charan Singh Ministry which followed the Morarji Desai-led Janata Party government of 1977-79.
Relations between the Congress party and the AIADMK slowly became strained and the DMK got closer to the Congress Party. In the mid-term parliamentary elections of January 1980, the Congress Party aligned with the DMK and the alliance won 37 out of 39 parliamentary seats in the state; the AIADMK had just two seats.
After returning to power, the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi's government dismissed a number of state governments belonging to the opposition parties, including Dr. M. G. Ramachandran's government. Elections to the state legislature were held in late May 1980. Reversing the trend of Lok Sabha elections, the AIADMK won a comfortable majority in the state assembly by winning 129 seats out of 234. MGR was sworn in as chief minister for the second time on June 9, 1980.
In 1984, even with MGR's failing health and subsequent hospitalization abroad, the party managed to win the state elections in alliance with the Congress party that had improved relations with the AIADMK. Many political historians consider MGR's persona and charisma at this point of time as "infallible", and a logical continuation of his on-screen "good lad" image, strengthened by his mythical status in the minds of the masses. The victory of the AIADMK-Congress combine in the assembly elections seemed so certain that the DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi refrained from contesting the assembly elections of 1984. MGR continued to enjoy popular support in his third tenure, which ended with his demise on December 24, 1987.
J. Jayalalitha era
The AIADMK swept to power in the elections of 1991. Many political observers have ascribed the landslide victory to the anti-incumbent wave arising out of the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi[citation needed] by suspected Tamil separatists fighting for a homeland in neighbouring Sri Lanka. The ensuing government was accused of large-scale corruption, but Jayalalithaa managed to hold on to power for a full term of five years, after which she lost the next election to the DMK, in 1996. The DMK held power till 2001, when Jayalalithaa won the next election to become chief minister once again. She has been very vocal in opposing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) since then and has had a wishy-washy political association with Subramaniam Swamy. Some AIADMK cadres were accused of being behind the acid-attack on Subramaniam Swamy's acquaintance, Chandralekha, an IAS officer.
In her second term as chief minister, Ms. Jayalalitha avoided the blunders she committed during the first term. However, she was plagued by corruption cases related to her earlier rule and had to sit out of the government for some time. After having been cleared by the courts she became chief minister again. She undertook economic reforms and took many popular decisions. such as banning of lottery tickets, restricting the liquor and sand quarrying business to government agencies and banning tobacco product sales near schools and colleges. She also took action against gangsters, trouble makers, and striking government employees, and improved law and order in the state.
She sent a special task force to the Satyamangalam forests in October 2004 to hunt down notorious sandalwood smuggler Veerappan. The operation was successful as Veerappan was finally killed by the task force on 18 October 2004.
However, in the Parliamentary elections of 2004, the party lost all their seats to the opposition coalition comprising all major opposition parties in the state.
In the assembly elections of 2006, in spite of media speculations of a hung assembly, the AIADMK was pushed out of power owing to big sweep by the DMK led by M Karunanidhi. It managed to hold on to only 61 assembly seats.
In the recently concluded 2011 elections, the party won by massive 146 seats making it a single largest party in the state.Only because of Jayalalitha, her ally DMDK became the second largest party leaving DMK to third.
Miss. Jayalalithaa won from her home constituency Srirangam.
AIADMK has spread out and has following in the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh with official units. The party under the leadership of Dr. Jayalalitha had floated 54 candidates across the state of Kerala in the Assembly elections of 2006 and had contested on its own. Initially AIADMK had made an alliance with Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) led by the former Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran, but decided to go on its own when the latter went with the Congress led United Democratic Front at the last moment, as a result of the mediation talks from the constituents of the UDF. In Karnataka the party had members in the state Assembly. AIADMK has its following in various other places like Mumbai and Delhi. There are also units in various countries where the Tamil population is spread out.
Jayalalitha is intelligent and efficient, but her authoritarian style left with no visible second level leadership or youth faces in her party. In this era of development oriented politics, her party lacks well-known figures.
Recently she made an effort to attract youths, by forming "Ilaignar Pasarai", which gained momentum, but her effort was demolished in one stroke, when she asked youths to be patient in a marriage function. Various press articles reported that youth in her party was disappointed by her remarks. She has attacked the DMK over its role in the government's neglect of the economy, ignoring the rising cost of living and further ignoring the increase in political extremism.
