For her ardent supporters, four years of wait has come to days and for her foes, the years-time to build a political system of bulwarking her resurgence is just left with days as the people from both sides of the aisle are looking forward to her arrival in Tamil Nadu so are the general public who would be witnessing what VK Sasikala's arrival would mean and how it would trouble the ADMK party ahead of the elections. What's next for Sasikala? Will Tamil Nadu witness her political resurgence or will she go in Rajini's way of closing the political gates owing to her health condition? Let's look into the possible options that lie before the closest aide of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

On Wednesday, VK Sasikala has got officially released from the four-year prison sentence that she served in Parappana Agrahara Central Prison in Bengaluru since February 2017 after getting convicted in the Disproportionate Assets Case. Though she got released from prison confinement, Sasikala has been currently confined to bed as she has been getting treated for COVID-19 and for sudden health discomforts for over a week in Victoria Hospital in the city. On Wednesday, the prison department had issued an official certificate that she had completed her prison sentence. 

However, it has been expected that she will be arriving in Chennai in the first week of February, but the obvious state is it's hard to put out the expectation on how she uses the available options. The first option on the plate is the political resurgence and execute her operation to take the reign of ADMK. The Tamil Nadu ruling party had started to feel the quakes even before her release with some of the ministers had apparently supported her, pushing the current leaders to strictly warn the party members not to show their support to Sasikala. 

The supporter turned archnemesis Edappadi Palaniswami is hopeful that her release won't endanger him. Though this option can be seen as the first to start her resurgence, Palaniswami said there is no chance that Sasikala will be joining the ADMK. Sasikala left to prison as ADMK's General Secretary but comes back with no political identity but with the support from her supporters to grab one, either from ADMK or in ADMK's rival AMMK, led by her nephew TTV Dhinakaran. 

If ADMK stands firmly with Edappadi Palaniswami that the party shouldn't accept or align with Sasikala, she can move to the next option of leading AMMK and contesting in the polls independently. With nearly three decades of remaining as Jayalalithaa's shadow, Sasikala was not only the closest aide of the late Chief Minister but she was also one of the decision-makers of ADMK with the clear picture of every ADMK leader including Edappadi Palaniswami. If she wishes to make her political resurgence and to lead AMMK, she would possibly break the vote banks of ADMK and DMK in the polls. 

She would also use a perfect bait to fish more ADMK leaders on her ship and she would take this option of leading AMMK against ADMK if she truly believes that AMMK can have a political breakthrough in the upcoming polls, which would make the ADMK leaders surrender before her and will accept her leadership, through which she could possibly hunt for the ways of taking back from what she was expelled- General Secretary of ADMK. The third option is that Sasikala would work to amalgamate the rivals ADMK and AMMK ahead of the polls. 

In her third option, the ADMK leaders would find the conviction to accept Sasikala to merge together to defeat the DMK as most of the surveys had shown that DMK has a stronghold and would win the upcoming polls, which had disturbed the ADMK. Though Edappadi Palaniswami had refused to accept Sasikala, the political observers say that if Sasikala goes for this option, the ADMK may have to come to ally with AMMK to defeat DMK, and RSS Ideologue S Gurumurthy has also recommended this option to ADMK to accept Sasikala to defeat DMK. 

The other option is working behind the screen to topple the ADMK if her entry to power is blocked in the party. She won't be happy in further letting the current leaders - Edappadi Palaniswami and Panneerselvam, whom Sasikala's supporters say she had picked both of them as the Chief Minister, to grow further in the party. If ADMK stands firm in its stand, Sasikala would trigger her supporters to come to her camp and to act against the ADMK in her bid to emerge as the successor of Jayalalithaa. If she finds this option goes in a way that wasn't pleased, she would work out to form an alliance with the BJP to defeat both the Dravidian parties. 

Finally, her last option would be going in Rajini's way, quitting politics with the conviction of taking care of her health. As Sasikala has been hospitalized in Bengaluru for over a week for breathing difficulty and COVID-19 viral infection, we can't fully deny the possibility that there is no business for this option. Owing to her health condition, she would be insisted to consider her political resurgence. However, Sasikala may brave her health condition to emerge as the power centric in the ADMK despite the troubles and challenges. 

With all these options lying before her, Sasikala, as a sole decision-maker, would be picking which one fits her and whichever option she picks, it would lead to a major political debate across the state. While she has several options to decide her comeback in politics, she won't be having any option other than waiting for six more years to contest in the elections, which draws to the conclusion that if she wishes to become the Chief Minister, she has to wait for six years as per section 8 of the Representation of the People's Act, 1958 which disqualifies a person if convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act.