When the independent candidate started addressing the voters in a loud voice during her election campaign, onlookers became perplexed as they read her name, Kalaignar A. Jayalalithaa, printed across the digital banner on an autorickshaw accompanying her.
Yes, you read it right. She does bear the name of two sworn rivals — the two late supremos of the Dravidian parties, Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi.
While most of the independent candidates, after filing the nomination, mysteriously vanished from the electioneering scene, ‘Kalaignar’ Jayalalithaa visited almost all parts of Thoothukudi Assembly segment to seek votes.
“Since I am a popular bow-song [villupaattu] exponent in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli districts, people called me ‘Kalaignar Jayalalithaa’ and I used the name for my election campaign too to attract the attention of voters,” says Ms. Jayalalithaa of SKSR Colony in Thoothukudi.
Her performance during temple festivals started when she was just 13 years old. As the journey still continues, she is quite popular among the people of Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts and received the title Kalaignar.
Is there any significance behind christening her Jayalalithaa?
“No. The names of my brother and two sisters all start with either Jayam or Jaya. And, my father, a bow-song master, christened me Jayalalithaa,” she says.
Ms. Jayalalithaa, president of Tamil Nadu Gramiya Kalaignargal Munnetra Sangam, has come out with many suggestions for betterment of folk artistes, who are battling hunger and poverty due to poor patronage.
“But no one is bothered about our pathetic condition. When temple festivals were stopped completely during lockdown, most of us were starving. We had just a meal a day. No political party has made any promise about our wellbeing in their manifesto. I am not bothered about the outcome of the poll, but I want to highlight the plight of rural folk artistes, which is being discussed among the people after I entered the political arena,” she adds.