People throng Jayalalithaa memorial on her first death anniversary

She became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu six times and dominated the state politics for even longer. But one year ago, J Jayalalithaa breathed her last following a cardiac arrest in a hospital in Chennai.

Anyone even slightly aware of Indian polity must be acquainted with the frenzy around the AIADMK leader, whose demise compelled even her arch rival Karunanidhi’s DMK to display a banner at her memorial site saying, “Where will our commander go in search for a rival like you?”

A year later, there’s no love lost for Jayalalithaa as scores of people converged at her memorial to mark her first death anniversary. In one of the pictures, a man could be seen painted in the colours of AIADMK.

There was heavy security deployed at the memorial site at Marina beach in Chennai.

Jayalalithaa’s death had triggered a lot of controversy. While some claimed that the death was of natural cause, many alleged foulplay.

The Tamil Nadu government had later constituted a probe panel headed by Madras High Court’s retired judge Justice A Arumugaswamy to probe the circumstances and the situation leading to hospitalisation of Jayalalithaa.