Jaya to be sworn as TN CM; to focus on L&O, economy

Chennai, May 15: AIADMK General Secretary Jayalalithaa, who led her party to a landslide victory in the assembly elections, will be sworn-in as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for a third substantive term on Monday, May 16.

63-year old Jayalalithaa will take oath as Chief Minister at 12.15 pm tomorrow at the University of Madras Centenary Building here, Chief Secretary S Malathi announced after the AIADMK chief met Governor S S Barnala and staked her claim to form government.

Earlier, she was elected unanimously Leader of the AIADMK Legislature Party at a meeting of 146 newly elected MLAs held at the party headquarters here.

Armed with the letter of party legislators electing her as their Leader, Jayalalithaa met Barnala at the Raj Bhavan and staked her claim to form the government.

A Raj Bhavan release said Barnala had asked Jayalalithaa to form the "ministry at the earliest."
Emerging from her meeting with the Governor, Jayalalilthaa, who had earlier ruled the state from 1991-96 and 2001-06, told reporters that her immediate priority would be to restore law and order and bring back the state economy on the rails.

"My first priority will be to restore law and order in the state. The state''s economy has been totally derailed and there has been a lot of regression during the last five years. It is almost as if like having gone back to dark ages," she said adding the state had to be brought back to the path of growth, development and prosperity.

Describing as ''perennial,'' the acute power shortage situation, believed to be one of the factors that brought down the DMK, she said all issues would be addressed one by one.

She assured people that they need not worry about their safety and security, promising that law and order would be "back on track".

On reports about Congress President Sonia Gandhi inviting her to Delhi for tea, she only said the UPA Chairperson had greeted her on her party's win over phone and did not elaborate.

In a spectacular come back, Jayalalithaa, who stitched up a rainbow alliance with parties like actor-politician Vijaykant's DMDK and the Left parties besides several smaller parties, stormed to power in the April 13 assembly elections with the front sweeping 200 of the 234 assembly seats.

AIADMK alone garnered 150 seats putting itself in a strong position to form a government on its own.

The party had made "detriorating law and order" besides power cut and corruption key poll issues which seemed to have grounded the DMK which ended up with only 23 seats, suffering one of its worst ever poll debacles.

On her visit to Raj Bhavan to stake claim for forming the government, Jayalalithaa said she had been there before many times and therefore it did not make a difference.

Reacting to the oil companies hiking petrol prices by Rs 5 per litre with effect from last midnight, she said it was an "unfortunate move which would cause great hardship to people."

PTI