Tamil Nadu districts. Chennai (formerly known as Madras) is the state capital. It is the fourth largest urban agglomeration in India and is also one of the major Metropolitan cities of India. The state comprises 39 Lok Sabha constituencies and 234 Legislative Assembly constituencies. Tamil Nadu had a bicameral legislature until 1986, when it was replaced with a unicameral legislature, like most other states in India. The term length of the government is five years. The present government is headed by Edapaadi K Palaniswami, after the demise of former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa of the All India Anna Dravida
History of Tamil Nadu Tamil political parties. They exerted pressure on the Indian government to intercede with the Sri Lankan government on behalf of the Sri Lankan Tamilians. However, LTTE lost much of its support from Tamil Nadu following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on 21 May 1991 by an operative from Sri Lanka for the former prime minister's role in sending Indian peacekeepers to Sri Lanka to disarm the LTTE. The east coast of Tamil Nadu was one of the areas affected by the Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004, during which almost 8000 people died in the disaster. The sixth most populous state