Chennai, Feb. 5: For a nation used to sons, daughters and grandchildren inheriting political leadership by way of bloodline, Sasikala represents a totally new dimension. She is set to become chief minister for being a loyal aide of Jayalalithaa and not a relative. It is the equivalent of Vincent George becoming Congress president.

DMK's Stalin was spot on when he said people voted for Jayalalithaa, not for all those who worked in her household. "Probably what makes her more qualified is that she also was Jayalalithaa's jailmate after their conviction in the wealth case," quipped a DMK senior.

But ask C.R. Saraswathi, the AIADMK spokesperson, and she will disagree.

"For more than three decades she has been near Amma observing her political skills and administrative command. She not only observed but also absorbed them. So she has the wherewithal to be party leader and chief minister," she argued.

For much of those 30 years, Sasikala was a shadowy figure - the backseat assistant who held no post, unlike Vincent George who was private secretary to Rajiv Gandhi and the Sonia Gandhi - but someone Jayalalithaa found indispensable.

After a few months of banishment, Jayalalithaa rehabilitated her at her Poes Garden bungalow from where Sasikala calls the shots today.

During the last four years Jayalalithaa had kept Sasikala's husband, brothers and nephews away from the corridors of power. But now it is they who rule the roost, advising "Chinnamma" and plotting her political moves.

"Her husband M. Natarajan (known by his initials MN that sounds like the Tamil word Yaman - the name for the lord of death) is the real Shakuni. He chose the timing of her elevation knowing Delhi would be too busy with the Uttar Pradesh elections to intervene in the change of guard in Tamil Nadu. But for his insistence, Sasikala would have preferred to rule by proxy because she is averse to interacting in public, with just middle-school Tamil medium education," an AIADMK senior said.

Natarajan was hospitalised tonight after he complained of breathing trouble, reports PTI.

Sasikala tries to dress like Jayalalithaa, move like her and even sign like her with an upward slant, but she lacks Jayalalithaa's convent education and the natural self-confidence she oozed.

"Chinnamma means junior mother, but Sasikala does not measure up even as a sub-junior mother," quipped Thuglak editor S. Gurumurthy, who fears that Sasikala's emergence would make family-oriented cronyism even more deep-rooted in Tamil Nadu's polity.

"Karunanidhi feared a public backlash if he made Stalin his successor too soon and too fast and so did it in calibrated steps. But Sasikala or her family nurse no such misgivings. They are too brazen about getting what they want," Gurumurthy observed.

However, people see someone else as the real lookalike of Amma, someone who lives just 2km from Poes Garden - Deepa Jayakumar, the 41-year-old niece of Jayalalithaa.

On the evening Sasikala was elected chief minister-in-waiting at a subdued show by the AIADMK MLAs, Deepa addressed her charged-up supporters from the balcony of her very middle class home in T. Nagar.

"People must have the freedom to carry on their political activities. There should be no compromise on the people welfare projects of Amma," she said. She echoed the apprehension that Sasikala will use the power of the police to quell the dissidents rallying behind Deepa. The black shawl Deepa had draped around her shoulders further conveyed her symbolic protest at the events of a few hours ago. That sets the stage for the niece versus aide battle - something the nation has not witnessed so far.