Jayakumar, Dhanapal will rule in TN assembly

CHENNAI: Two former state ministers who will pilot the proceedings of the 14th Tamil Nadu legislative assembly, D Jayakumar and P Dhanapal would be sworn in as the Speaker and Deputy Speaker on Friday. They filed their nominations for the posts on Thursday and their election is a foregone conclusion as the AIADMK enjoys a majority in the 234-member House. And, since there are no other contenders, they will be elected unopposed.
The fifty-one-year-old Jayakumar, an articulate lawyer known for his wit and argumentative skills, is perceived to be a hard core loyalist of AIADMK supremo and chief minister J Jayalalithaa.He was many years dominant in the second rung leadership of the party, before he was inducted in the successive Jayalalithaa cabinets in 1991 and 2001, first as forests and fisheries minister and later assigned the law and electricity portfolios. He has been handpicked by Amma for presiding over the affairs of the state assembly. Hailing from north Chennai, he defeated Congress candidate R Manohar in the Royapuram assembly constituency by a margin of over 21,000 votes. Dhanapal, the Rasipuram MLA, has a relatively low profile in the party but is known for his diligence to duty.
Jayakumar has been with the AIADMK from its early days and his nomination for the prestigious Speaker's post is also attributed to his father K Durai Raj, a loyalist cum trusted friend of matinee idol and AIADMK founder M G Ramachandran. Durai was a member of state small savings committee in which MGR was the vice-president when the united' DMK led by late CN Annadurai wrested control of the Dravidian heartland from the Congress clutches. The seeds of the association with MGR in the small savings panel sprouted into a deep relationship that bonded the Jayakumar family with the AIADMK.
A little over a decade after MGR floated the party, Jayakumar started as a student wing member of the AIADMK during his under graduate days in Pachayappa's College. Subsequently, he headed the Royapuram unit of MGR Youth Wing before being elevated as the secretary of the party's fishermen wing.
Having won Jayalalithaa's confidence through his unstinted support to the party, he was twice inducted into the cabinet by Jayalalithaa during her previous two terms as chief minister. But when the AIADMK government was out of power, his role got diminished. A consolation post, though, was his nomination to the post of the party treasurer. But again he regained ground when he was catapulted as the north Chennai AIADMK district secretary after P K Sekar Babu defected to the rival DMK camp.