Once the power behind Tamil Nadu throne, Sasikala steps back into the arena — alone

Describing it as a symbol of continuity, Sasikala said the proposed party would follow the ideological path of the Dravidian stalwarts and function as a “movement” committed to the welfare of the marginalised. “I remained silent all these years hoping for unity, but the present circumstances have forced me to take this decision,” she said.

The party’s name, she said, would be announced later. There is speculation she may even consider reviving her brother Prabhakaran’s outfit, Anna Dravidar Kazhagam.

The bus she missed

Understanding Sasikala’s return means revisiting 2016. After Jayalalithaa’s death in December that year, Sasikala briefly appeared poised to inherit both party and government. In February 2017, she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case and sent to the Parapana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru. Before leaving, she convened AIADMK MLAs, secured letters of support, and facilitated the appointment of a successor as Chief Minister without naming Edappadi K Palaniswami, whom she now says is “not worth mentioning”.

In her absence, power coalesced around her nephew T T V Dhinakaran and what critics once called the “Mannargudi family” network. Over time, however, Palaniswami consolidated control. The “dharma yudham” launched by another claimant for power, O Panneerselvam who is popularly known as OPS, at Jayalalithaa’s memorial reshaped the party’s fault lines. Not only did OPS lose the revolt, which Sasikala alleges was instigated by “external forces”, Dhinakaran was also ousted from the party. By the time she was released in early 2021, the landscape had shifted.

In March 2021, a month before Assembly polls, Sasikala announced she was “stepping aside” from active politics, appealing for “Amma’s rule” to continue. According to her confidants, leaders associated with the BJP and the RSS urged her to stay away, arguing that her presence would split AIADMK votes and promising a “high position” in the party after the polls. But the AIADMK lost.

Post-election, she sought the promised re-entry. By then, the equation had changed. OPS was eventually sidelined and ousted from the AIADMK and Palaniswami, who is known as EPS, tightened his grip. The door did not reopen.

A close confidante of Sasikala told The Indian Express she had trusted the BJP leaders once, but they did not keep their word. Now, Sasikala is learnt to have told BJP interlocutors she commands former MLAs, that OPS twice returned power to Jayalalithaa when required, but Palaniswami did not. Her political conclusion, aides say, is that she no longer trusts either the BJP-RSS leaders or EPS and that nearly nine years were wasted waiting.

A party without a family

If her comeback feels solitary, it is because it is. Sasikala had hoped to unite OPS and Dhinakaran under her banner and return to the AIADMK fold. Neither of them joined the Opposition party. The case over the party’s “Two Leaves” symbol, pending in Delhi and probed by the CBI, has nudged Dhinakaran toward the NDA again. He has also announced that he will not contest this election. OPS has publicly said he will neither join the DMK nor float a new party.

Who, then, stands with Sasikala? Velladurai, a retired Additional Superintendent of Police from her Mukkulathor community in Tirunelveli and once Dhinakaran’s candidate in Ambasamudram, is now a key face beside her. Former MLAs Narasimhan of Tiruvallur and Mulachur R Perumal of Kancheepuram have also joined her. A source in actor Vjay’s party TVK said the Sasikala camp was holding talks with the party’s strategist Aadhav Arjuna, too, about forming an alliance, or she could become a fourth front.

But there is no single constituency she can claim as her fortress.

Sasikala’s significance

Her significance may lie elsewhere. In at least 13 districts — Dindigul, Theni, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Tiruchi — roughly 60 seats have pockets where her community networks run deep. After the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, even a candidate securing 1,000 votes could tip close contests. For the AIADMK–NDA combine, that arithmetic matters.

Sasikala alleged that had she been lodged in a Tamil Nadu prison instead of Bengaluru, she might have faced harm as the CM at the time was EPS. She claimed a threat to life from the state government and said she refused a suggestion to shift to a Chennai jail for fear of danger and propaganda. She also alleged that upon her release, AIADMK leaders attempted to arrest her for using the party flag on her car. Airing these allegations on the campaign trail may wound the AIADMK and potentially shift contests at the ground level.

Sasikala is a politician without a symbol, without the “Two Leaves”, without the cadre she once commanded. Yet she carries the sheen of political legacy: of the 2016 polls, when she engineered Jayalalithaa’s return and operated behind the People’s Welfare Front (PWF), a third front led by Left parties that spoiled the DMK’s chances by splitting anti-AIADMK votes. In 2016, it was widely believed that Stalin would win and become the CM; he did not. In 2021, he did.

If there are invisible hands in today’s rearrangements, they are gloved. Sasikala, perhaps the loneliest politician in the state, has decided against silence. Whether this will be her march back to relevance or a final detour remains unclear. But in a contest armed with the loyalty and minimal command of her powerful OBC community, where margins could be thin, even a thousand votes can echo.