Jayalalithaa isn’t the first politician to be convicted on corruption charges but she is the country’s first serving chief minister to be sentenced; most significant, she cannot contest elections for the next 10 years.
Can Ms Jayalalithaa, who turned 66 earlier this year, survive this blow politically?
Ms Jayalalithaa is, after all, still at the height of her powers: in the last assembly elections, the AIADMK-led alliance won a whopping 203 seats in the 234-strong assembly. Earlier this year, her party won 37 of 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu.
Should Ms Jayalalithaa fail to win a reversal of Saturday’s verdict in a higher court as she has done earlier, what does the future hold for her? Is there a political life after conviction – or serious charges – for politicians?
Former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala is a case in point. Three years after he demitted office, he was charged in June 2008 in connection with the appointment of 3,206 junior teachers in Haryana in 1999-2000, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in January 2013.
Now out of prison on bail on health grounds, Mr Chautala on Thursday – ahead of next month’s Haryana elections - addressed a political rally in Jind that saw a substantial turnout, and his INLD, reports suggest, will make a good showing. However, the court on Friday asked him to return to jail, upset that he hadn’t heeded its directive not to participate in political activity while out on bail.
Lalu’s roller-coasterRashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav stepped down as Bihar chief minister in 1997 when he was charged in the fodder scam. He installed his wife, Rabri Devi as CM, the party went on to win another election, and she remained in office till 2005. Last year, Mr Yadav lost his Lok Sabha membership after he was convicted. And if the party fared poorly in 2009 and 2014, it was more a result of a lack of seat adjustments: in 2004, when his party went to elections with the Congress and the Lok Jan Shakti Party, it did well, and he became union railway minister in UPA I.
And ahead of the general elections, the BJP brought back former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa into the party, even though he was yet to be cleared of all the corruption charges against him – the party had forced him to step down as CM in July 2011 due to these charges. Annoyed at the time, he quit the BJP and formed the KJP in 2012. In the May 2013 assembly elections, the KJP got 10 per cent of the votes, and the BJP lost power in the state.
Clearly, if Ms Jayalalithaa can get an acquittal in a higher court, she will still have a chance of making a comeback: if she fails, it may prove difficult to remote control the party for 10 years.
