Chennai: Nearly 8 months after she was forced to quit over corruption charges, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) chief J Jayalalithaa will take oath as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for the fifth time on Saturday. The swearing-in ceremony will take place at 11 AM at the Madras University Centenary Auditorium in Chennai.
Along with Jayalalithaa, 28 other ministers will be sworn in to head the government. According to the reports, Jayalalithaa will keep the Home Ministry portfolio with herself while outgoing Tamil Nadu chief minister O Paneerselvam will be the Finance Minister. No new faces are likely to be inducted into the new Cabinet.
In a unanimous decision, 67-year-old Jayalalithaa was elected as legislature party leader at a meeting of party MLAs. The decision came 11 days after she was acquitted by the Karnataka High Court in a disproportionate assets case.
After being elected as the leader of the legislature party, she made her first public appearance on Friday. Amidst a huge rally of supporters and AIADMK members, she met Governor K Rosaiah who had invited her to form the government. Her close confidant Panneerselvam had stepped down from the post of the CM on Friday to pave way for Jayalalithaa to take over.
With her return to power, the industrialists in the state hope that the government will be back to business after months of political uncertainty. Several key decisions had been left pending in the absence of the AIADMK chief.
"If you see, for seven months, nothing was moving. No one was taking any decision. Bureaucrats weren't taking decisions. Everything was stopped," FICCI State Council Chairman M Rafeeque Ahmed said.
Analysts also believe that Jayalalithaa's return to power will see stability return to the state. Several big ticket projects are likely to be back on track including the Chennai Metro Rail.
Jayalalithaa was forced to resign as the chief minister in 2014 after being convicted of holding unaccounted cash and property. However, the Karnataka High Court scrapped the case against her and acquitted her of all charges.
After she had stepped down, senior ministers had wept at the swearing-in ceremony of her replacement, loyalist O Panneerselvam. Some supporters had also reportedly set themselves on fire to protest against her conviction.
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