Tens of thousands of mourners filed past the coffin of the Indian politician Jayalalithaa Jayaram on Tuesday in an emotional farewell to the former movie star who enjoyed almost god-like status in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Since the body reached the Rajaji Hall in the early hours from her residence in Poes Garden, people had been queuing up to catch a glimpse of the late leader.
State Ministers, AIADMK legislators, parliamentarians, party functionaries and her close aide Sasikala and her relatives were in attendance. Leaders across party lines, film fraternity, industrialists and eminent persons were among those visited the Rajaji Hall and paid their last respects to her.
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The southern state had been tense since Sunday after reports that her health had worsened and she had been put on life support. On Monday, scuffles broke out outside the hospital as many of her thousands of supporters there tried to break through the police barricades.
When her political mentor and former on-screen love interest MG Ramachandran died in 1987, riots and looting broke out across the state. Ahead of Jayalalithaa's death, police and security presence was beefed up across Tamil Nadu over fears of an emotional reaction from her followers.
Several of her supporters resorted to self-harm when she was briefly jailed in 2014 on charges of corruption. Her conviction, later overturned on appeal, sparked mass protests and even some reported suicides. Thousands of directors, actors and producers in the successful Tamil language film industry went on hunger strike to demand her release.
Tamil Nadu names successor
An hour after her party announced her death late on Monday after a cardiac arrest, state Finance Minister OP Panneerselvam was sworn in to lead economically important Tamil Nadu, a base for auto firms Ford Motor Daimler, Hyundai and Nissan and IT firm Cognizant.
Panneerselvam had stood in for Jayalalithaa in the past, but made it clear he was not replacing her. He declined to take her place at the head of the cabinet table while she was ill and instead had her picture placed there. His rise to the top job in Tamil Nadu would help allay fears of a power struggle in the AIADMK, built entirely around the cult of Jayalalithaa.