Jayalalithaa to face strongest opposition

Jayalalithaa will face her strongest ever opposition in the state assembly where the DMK-Congress-IUML will occupy 98 seats. Besides attending to the unfinished agenda from her previous term, including speeding up infrastructure projects and schemes for generating jobs, Jayalalithaa has to fulfill the long list of promises in her poll manifesto.

While the economically lower strata appears to have given her the thumbs up for her welfare schemes, the affluent sections in urban areas endorsed her five-year tenure with expectations of further development and industrialisation.

Jayalalithaa on Friday said the poll victory was a recognition of her welfare schemes. She reiterated she would work with "renewed vigour" for people's welfare. "I will express my gratitude to them through my actions," she said. "They have given my party the mandate as they know that it is only the AIADMK that protects people, especially the poor," she said. Thiruparankundram MLA S M Seenivel, who was hospitalized in Madurai due to a heart attack, could not attend the meeting.