J Jayalalithaa has been elected as the legislature party leader of AIADMK on Friday and governor K Rosaiah has invited her to form the ministry. She will be sworn in at 11 am on Saturday and this will be fourth time that Jayalalithaa assumes the office of chief minister of TN. She will lead the party in the elections to the assembly scheduled for 2016.

Jayalalithaa had to resign from the assembly and her post as chief minister after she was convicted by a trial court in the disproportionate assets case last September.

On May 11, the Karnataka high court upturned the trial court conviction and cleared 67-year-old Jayalalithaa of all charges in the graft case. The Karnataka government is going to challenge her acquittal in the supreme court.

AIADMK legislators re-elected Jayalalithaa as their leader at a meeting in Chennai on Friday morning after which O Panneerselvam resigned as the chief minister. After the legislative party meeting Panneerselvam went to Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence and from there he headed for the Raj Bhavan to submit his resignation.
 
Clearing the decks for Jayalalithaa to contest from an assembly constituency, P Vetrivel, AIADMK MLA from north Chennai's Radhakrishnan Nagar, had resigned on May 17. Jayalalithaa used to represent the temple town of Srirangam in the assembly. After her resignation, the party managed to retain the seat through a by-election by a huge margin.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka High Court on Thursday dismissed a PIL against Jayalalithaa being sworn in as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, observing that the petition had been filed for "publicity purpose".

The petitioner had submitted that since the recent High Court order acquitting Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case had "flaws", there are possibilities of someone moving the Supreme Court challenging the judgment.

Jayalalithaa had last week announced convening of the legislature party leaders meeting on May 22. In a statement issued recently, Jayalalithaa had said that those things desired by her party cadres would happen at the right time and "nobody can stop" it.