Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Panneerselvam

As the death of AIADMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa was announced, the party announced senior AIADMK leader O Panneerselvam as the new AIADMK chief and the new Tamil Nadu chief minister. He was sworn in after midnight by Governor Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhawan, in the early hours of Tuesday, amid the presence of party leaders, almost two hours after she passed away.

Arrangements were being made for the public to pay last respects to the leader. Last rites will be held today at 4.30pm. This was his third swearing-in as Chief Minister. All 31 members of the outgoing Ministry were sworn in along with him. As Jayalalithaa’s trusted man, Panneerselvam had stepped into her shoes for two brief periods, after she was unseated by the courts.

This is the third time that he is being sworn in as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Panneerselvam has previously served as chief minister of Tamil Nadu from 2001 to 2002, when Jayalalithaa was barred from holding political office by the Supreme Court. He held office as CM again from September 2014 to May 2015 when Jayalalithaa was convicted in the disproportionate assets case.

In office, Panneerselvam refused to sit on the chief minister’s chair, preferring to keep a picture of Jayalalithaa on it and working on a chair beside it.

Observers felt it would be a challenges task for Panneerselvam with over four years to go for the present government. He need to keep the party together as it tries to reinvent itself in the post-Jayalalithaa period. At present, there seems no one in the AIADMK who can match the charisma of party founder M.G. Ramachandran or the leadership skills of Jayalalithaa, both of whom held sway over the masses for over four decades.