Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, a popular leader who showered the poor with populist programmes and a pole in state politics for three decades, died here tonight at a private hospital after battling for life for the 75 days.

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She died at 11:30 pm, Apollo Hospital said.

The 67-year-old leader, who suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday evening, passed at 11:30 pm tonight, the Apollo Hospitals said in a statement.

A tinsel heroine, who inherited the legacy of her mentor late MGR, had entered politics in the early 1980s as the propaganda secretary of AIADMK and was made the incharge of the noon meal scheme undertaken by the MGR government.

Born in a Brahmin family, Jayalalithaa emerged as a fiesty leader in a state where forces of social justice had thrown up an anti-Brahmin political movement even before independence.

She practised politics on her own terms and was one of the two poles in the state for nearly 30 years fighting the DMK headed by redoubtable M Karunanidhi.