Chennai: Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu J Jayalalithaa passed away in Chennai on Monday night. She suffered a cardiac arrest last night and was shifted back to the ICU and kept under observation at Apollo Hospital. Jayalalithaa was 68.
Jayalalithaa, who was popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes and had been a fixture of Tamil Nadu politics for three decades, left for her heavenly abode after battling for life for 75 days.
The CM passed at 11:30 pm on Monday night, the Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.
Even as her death was announced, the AIADMK MLAs were meeting at the party headquarters to elect a successor to Jayalalithaa amid speculation that loyalist O Panneerselvam will fit into her shoes.
Only hours earlier in the evening, the hospital had denied reports that Jayalalithaa had died as "baseless and false" when TV channels said she was no more.
"It is with indescribable grief, we announce the sad demise of our esteemed Honourable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Puratchi Thalaivi Amma at 11.30 PM today," Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.
The AIADMK supremo, commonly known as Amma, was admitted to the hospital for treatment of "fever and dehydration" on September 22 and was subsequently shifted to the ICU. She was then moved to a private ward on November 19.
The doctors later said she needed a longer hospital stay as she was suffering from infection, and put her on respiratory support.
According to Apollo Hospital, a team of specialist doctors -- cardiologists, respiratory physicians, consultants for infectious diseases, diabetologist and endocrinologist -- treated her.
Jayalalithaa was kept on ECMO or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is a life support system used for patients with life threatening heart or lung problems.
Apollo had earlier said the 68-year-old Jayalalithaa, who has been in hospital since September, was being treated and closely monitored by experts.
Crowds began to mass outside the hospital from Sunday evening as news that Jayalalithaa had suffered a cardiac arrest spread like wild fire.
Jayalalithaa was a leading actress in 140 films of several languages from 1961 to 1980, before entering politics. She was a member of the Rajya Sabha, elected from Tamil Nadu, from 1984 to 1989.
A tinsel heroine, who inherited the legacy of her mentor late MGR, had entered politics in the early 1980s as the propaganda secretary of AIADMK and was made the incharge of the noon meal scheme undertaken by the MGR government.
Born in a Brahmin family, Jayalalithaa emerged as a fiesty leader in a state where forces of social justice had thrown up an anti-Brahmin political movement even before independence. She practised politics on her own terms and was one of the two poles in the state for nearly 30 years fighting the DMK headed by redoubtable M Karunanidhi.
Jayalalithaa, who was the second Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after Janaki Ramachandran, served as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, in 2001, from 2002 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2014. She became the first incumbent chief minister in India to be disqualified from holding office due to conviction in a disproportionate assets case on 27 September 2014.
The Karnataka High Court acquitted Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case on 11 May 2015, and she resumed office as Chief Minister on 23 May.
Jayalalithaa was re-elected as Chief Minister on May 19, 2016 and took the oath as Chief Minister for the sixth time on May 23, May 2016.
- With inputs from agencies