Sasikala Natarajan

Sasikala Natarajan

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Category: Politics

Sasikala Natarajan Profile

  • Name:
  • Sasikala Natarajan
  • Born:
  • January 29, 1957
  • Spouse:
  • M. Natarajan

Sasikala Natarajan Biography

Sasikala Natarajan is a confidante of J. Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and AIADMK. She stood behind Jayalalithaa as her best friend and well-wisher during her three tenures as Chief Minister. When Jayalalithaa was arrested in 1996 in connection with Colour TV scam, her best friend Sasikala had also go behind bars. She was remanded to judicial custody for 30 days. In 2011, Sasikala along with her husband Natarajan and 12 others were expelled from the party, and admitted her back to the party three months later, with the vow to break ties with all her relatives and to serve with no public ambitions. Jayalalithaa even asked her relatives to move out of her residence where they were staying for years as family members. By now Sasikala has been closely associated with Jayalalithaa for many long years.

 

She hails from Mannargudi of Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. She is a school dropout. Her husband Natarajan worked as public relations officer in state government on temporary basis when she got married. He then worked with then District Collector of Cuddalore V S Chandralekha, who was close to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MGR. During Emergency period Natarajan lost his temporary job and he requested V S Chandralekha to introduce his wife Sasikala to Jayalalithaa. Jayalalithaa was then serving as Propaganda Secretary of ADMK and their long term association began when Sasikala started shooting all the marriages and the functions for Jayalalithaa. The relationship slowly groomed to deep friendship between the two ladies.

 

Their friendship began in the early 1980s. Sasikala was a frustrated wife who was very fond of movies when she met Jayalalithaa. She chose the business of video renting and also brought a camera to shoot marriage functions, when her husband lost job. When she was introduced to Jayalalithaa by the IAS officer, the two ladies struck an instant rapport and rest is history. She stood with Jaya during her ups and downs and became her most trusted companion too. Since Jayalalithaa came into power for the first time in 1991, Sasikala became powerful too. Ministers used to take direct orders from her.

 

When she moved to Jayalalithaa’s home in 1989, she had brought 40 servants from her hometown Mannargudi to Poes Garden to run Jayalalithaa's house, and they are often referred to as ‘Mannargudi Mafia'. NDA's troubleshooters like Pramod Mahajan and Brajesh Mishra wisely used this team which had enormous lust for money. By mid-1990s, her family members became very rich. In 2011, when Mannargudi Mafia decided to catapulte Sasikala on to the hot seat of Chief Minister when Jayalalithaa got entangled in her disproportionate assets case in a Bangalore court, things got worse and Jaya received warning from her good friend, Narendra Modi who was then serving as Chief Minister of Gujarat.

 

In 2011 when her medical tests revealed that she was being given sedatives and chemical substances with small quantities of arsenic, Jayalalithaa’s patience was over and she asked Mannargudi clan to pack up. Though she re-inducted Sasikala later, she kept distance from her family members. She put many of her family members behind bars for making money through illegal means.

 

She became the general secretary of AIADMK, the political party which Jayalalithaa headed until her death, on 31 December 2016. On February 13, 2017, a 2-bench Supreme Court pronounced her guilty and ordered her arrest in a disproportionate assets case, effectively ending her Chief Ministerial ambitions.

Published: N/A

Updated: February 14, 2017

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