Two self-willed women celebrities have re-written political life in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu - Ms. Mamata Banerjee ending the 34-year unbroken rule of the Left in West Bengal and Ms. Jayalalithaa, a more seasoned politician, decimating the DMK, a severe blow for its 87-year old supremo Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, on whom the Congress-led UPA relied greatly to coast to victory in the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Decisive trends toward these spectacular victories had emerged by mid-day though official announcements of individual results began to flow later in the afternoon. The leads signalled celebrations by followers of AIADMK in Chennai and women danced on the streets in boisterous welcome. Leading DMK partymen including Ministers were trailing behind rivals in most constituencies. The AIADMK-led alliance was leading in over 190-195 constituencies for the 234-member Assembly with DMK gaining in less than 40 constituencies.

Tamil Nadu and Kerala rotate governments every five years and the 2011 assembly elections are no exception to the rule. Yet, Mr Karunanidhi's hold on the state, given all his Machiavellian tactics, seemed so unassailable since DMK's return to power in 2006, that the party's rout on this scale was least expected, even after most exit polls projected reverses for the ruling dispensation.

For the AIADMK led by Ms. Jayalalithaa, it is literally a rise from the debris of successive defeats not only in the two Lok Sabha elections but also in as many as ten Assembly byelections between 2006 and 2010. Ms. Jayalalithaa blamed it all on the DMK's bribing of voters.

For the Congress-led UPA, the outcome of Assembly elections is far from reassuring, with the knock-out it has sustained in Tamil Nadu in company with DMK, even though it has made good in Assam, Kerala and West Bengal. The Congress-led UDF has been voted to power in Kerala, but with a slender margin reflecting the continuing dominance of the Left Front while in West Bengal, the Congress will have to follow the dictates of Ms. Mamata's Trinamul Congress.

With more state elections in 2012, chiefly Uttar Pradesh,the Congress-led UPA-II faces more critical challenges to its hold on power until the next Lok Sabha elections in 2014. While embarrassed by the outturn, the party spokesmen maintained that the alliance with DMK would continue. But the Congress has virtually lost the ground it had managed to hold so far in Tamil Nadu

Ms. Jayalalithaa is expected to form the Government after the election formalities are completed in a couple of days. She will have a free hand as the major ally, Captain Vijaykant's DMDK, with a sizeable presence in the new Assembly had made it clear that his party was not keen to share power but wanted to bring an end to the 'regime of corruption' under Mr Karunanidhi. Both the Tamil Nadu alliances led by AIADMK and DMK were well-balanced to take on each other and their respective leaders were equally promising of more freebies, which helped Mr Karunanidhi to win in 2006. But the thrust of Ms. Jayalalithaa's campaigning was on the DMK family rule and the scam.

The 2011 elections saw the biggest turn-out of voters at 78.80 per cent and in at least 104 assembly constituencies, women outnumbered men on the electoral rolls. AIADMK alliance included DMDK, CPIM, CPI and a few smaller parties while the DMK-led alliance included Congress, given 63 seats to contest, as against 119 of DMK while the rest were shared by PMK and other local parties. Ms. Jayalalithaa, with some 160 seats for her party to contest, had allotted 41 constituencies to DMDK and 22 seats for the two left parties.

In the four weeks after polling day, the DMK leader seemed to exhibit signs of pessimism about the outcome, and said depending on the results, he would name his son and currently Deputy Chief Minister Mr Stalin to succeed him. He was also willing to share power with Congress in a coalition government, a total change from his previous stand that the people of Tamil Nadu would not like a coalition government. He has run a minority government with outside support by Congress for five years.

Ms. Jayalalithaa was supremely confident of the impending defeat of her rival, Mr Karunanidhi, and said, a week before the polling day, that the 2G scam was so well-known to people that their verdict would get reflected in the votes on April 13. Mr Karunanidhi had hoped before polling day that with full backing of Ms. Sonia Gandhi for his 'pro-poor' schemes and the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's endorsement of the 'achievements' of the DMK Government, their alliance would be safely back in the saddle. Mr Stalin had even claimed that DMK-led alliance would win 220 seats. (IPA Service)