Tamilnadu has always voted in an oscillatory manner ever since MGR left the scene. MGR as we all know, was a showman and a performer in movies. He was someone who acted and also produced a lot of movies. From being in the movies from the black and white era till the early 1980s, MGR benefitted from his own personal image and association with DMK. Sivaji Ganesan was running his own show as an superstar at that time, due to his commendable script sense and immaculate acting skills.But MGR’s onscreen superstardom and craze among young people was inexplicable.

DMK used MGR to further their political ambitions. It is fair to say, MGR developed some ambitions of his own along the way. MGR attacked Karunanidhi in a public meeting over party finances and the rest was history. MGR won and romped to victory in 1977. But what tilted things to his favour was the negative and personal campaigning against MGR. DMKs first mistake was the negative campaign on lines of regional and linguistic politics. Its second mistake was underestimating MGR’s appeal which was beyond movies.

MGR lasted for 10 years(1977-1987), his protege and successor Jayalalitha wasn’t expected to last much longer in politics. But she did and a tango was formed in politics. The alternative choices apart from Jaya and Karuna were very rare for the Tamilnadu voter. Jaya’s campaiging style was very unusual for a politician, whenever she was out of power, she was out of limelight for more than 2 years. As an opposition leader, she was nowhere as impactful that her partymen wished her to be. But even with certain limitations to her slightly impersonal campaigning style, she campaigned pretty hard and a year before the election date. This helped her gain visibility among people and also strike hard bargains with her alliance partners. There were certain moments when the moments when even the seasoned old fox Karunanidhi found it difficult to decipher her moves. She was an enigma and a mystery in herself.

The Jaya-Karuna tango lasted alternated for 25 years, culminating with the successive win of Jayalalitha in 2016. It broke, not only the shackles, of DMK, which went down to due to late campaigning of Stalin but also the alternating cycle of Tamilnadu politics. Jaya died in power in 2016, but not before embracing a more visible and aggressive form of campaigning from 2006 onwards.