Brand Amma gets a boost: Couples at mass wedding wear headbands with Jayalalithaa's photo

J Jayalalithaa has done it again. The Tamil Nadu chief minister definitely knows how to gain publicity and further her brand through a good deed. ‘Amma’ Jayalalithaa is turning 68 on 24 February and in true Indian politician style, the celebrations have already begun. Her party, the AIADMK, decided to mark her birthday by organising a mass wedding ceremony at Udumalpet in Coimbatore on Friday. That’s such a sweet humanitarian gesture, isn’t it? But leave it to Amma to brand even that. [caption id=“attachment_2615714” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Couples at a mass wedding ceremony organised to mark J Jayalalithaa’s 68th birthday at Udumalpet in Coimbatore. PTI[/caption] Sixty-eight couples got married at the ceremony. And practically all of them wore headbands with Jayalalithaa’s face on them. Yes, you read that right. ‘Amma’ was right there with the couples, staring at them from their foreheads. The bride and groom couldn’t have even looked at each other without seeing the smiling face of the chief minister. And as if that wasn’t eerie enough, The NewsMinute reported that even the marriage hall was plastered with posters of Jayalalithaa. It was Amma, Amma everywhere, but not in person. Nah, the TN chief minister was too busy to attend the ceremony IRL. Of course this is not the first time that she has branded a good deed with her mug shot. In December 2015, shortly after the floods situation got better, her party distributed relief packets with her photo pasted on them. She faced a lot of flak for doing so but hey, all publicity is good publicity. Then there are the rice bags that The Hindu reported she sold for the subsidised price of Rs 20 per kg. Each of the bags had her picture on it. Then again, it is her birthday celebrations, after all. If she can’t praise herself now, then when? And if she hadn’t done this, we wouldn’t be writing about some mass wedding ceremony in a small town, right?