NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES US ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
Sathiya Moorthy in Madras
Interested parties are throwing hats into the ring at regular intervals ever since Friday's Supreme Court order on the Tansi case hearing in the Madras high court.
The order signalled the near-impossibility of Jayalalithaa's continuance as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu beyond November 13.
Bharatiya Janata Party-defector Dr V Maithreyan's is the latest name to the long list, followed by Dr Visalakshmi Nedunchezhiyan, another doctor and wife of Dravidian ideologue the late V R Nedunchezhiyan.
Earlier speculation on an alternate chief minister revolved around D Jayakumar, C Ponnaiyan, M Thambidurai, R Thalavai Sundaram and R Saroja, all of them ministers.
Saroja, like Ponnaiyan and Thambidurai, was sworn in along with Jayalalithaa on May 14.
Jayakumar has been a sworn Jayalalithaa loyalist and was the only minister from the chief minister's previous innings to have been nominated in the May polls.
While Visalakshmi Nedunchezhiyan was considered bossy, Jayalalithaa doesn't favour Maithreyan much, as she is known to feel uncomfortable with 'professional defectors'.
That being the case, a family member of Sasikala Natarajan, Jayalalithaa's confidante and co-convict in the Tansi case, is seen as the dark horse, as that would allow the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief to retain control of the party.
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