It's Andipatti for Jaya again

Chennai, Mar 27 (UNI) AIADMK Supremo and Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has once again chosen Andipatti, a rural constituency in Theni district of South Tamil Nadu, to seek re-election in the May 8 Assembly poll.

After being disqualified from contesting the May 2001 Assembly elections, Ms Jayalalithaa had won hands down from this constituency, a pocket borough of her mentor M G Ramachandran, in the 2002 byelections.

Ms Jayalalithaa was disqualified from contesting the May 2001 Assembly elections though she had filed nominations in four constituencies following her conviction in the TANSI land deal case.

She won the bypoll and became the Chief Minister again after the Supreme Court exonerated her from the case.

In 2002, Ms Jayalalithaa promised she would make the backward Andipatti (a land of beggers) to Arasanpatti (a land of Kings). She has almost fulfilled her election promise if the facilities provided in the constituency are any indication.

Daily drinking water supply, good roads, health and sanitation facilities even in remote villages, reliable power supply, a 300-bed hospital, an arts and science college, industrial training institute for women, the list is long.

In the last five years, over Rs 132 crore had been pumped into this ''special'' constituency under various schemes and in the form of welfare assistance.

Ms Jayalalithaa had won the byelection after party MLA Thanga Tamil Selvan vacated his seat for the Chief Ministerial candidate.

It was a direct contest between Jayalalitha a and rival DMK candidate Vaigai Sekar.

Her allies, the now defunct Tamil Maanila Congress, Congress, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the Left had boycotted the polls after the Election Commission refused to postpone the byelection.

Ms Jayalalithaa first got elected to the State Assembly from Bodinayakkanur in Theni district in the 1989 elections when the AIADMK split into two after the death of MGR.

After the unification of the party, she won from Bargur, another rural backward constituency in Dharmapuri district in the 1991 elections, but failed to get re-elected in the 1996 elections, when the party was routed.

UNI WS GM SC BST1826