to Wadiyar and assumed the title Bahadur. He established the Mysore Representative Assembly; for the first time in India, democratic experiments were being conducted in Mysore. Chamaraja Wadiyar IX's son and successor Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV earned great fame as a saintly king (rajarishi), and his kingdom was hailed as Ramarajya by Mahatma Gandhi–as an ideal kingdom comparable to the one ruled by Lord Rama. Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV's nephew, successor, and the last reigning king of the Wadiyar dynasty, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, ruled from 1940 until 1950. Upon India's independence from the British crown in 1947, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar ceded his kingdom into the new temporary Dominion of India but continued as Maharajah until India became a Republic in 1950. Dissolution of the kingdom Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar became the rajapramukh of the renamed Mysore State from 1950 to 1956. After the reorganisation of Indian states on a linguistic basis in 1956, he was appointed Governor of the integrated Mysore State (present Karnataka State), a post which he held until 1964. He was then appointed Governor of Madras (now Tamil Nadu) for two years. The Indian Constitution continued to recognise him as the Maharajah of Mysore until 1971, when titles and privy purses of maharajas were abolished by the Government of India under Indira Gandhi. The maharajah died in 1974. His only son Srikantadatta Narasimharaja Wadiyar became the head of the family; he was a member of the Indian Parliament. Upon Srikantadatta Wadiyar's demise 2013, his widowed wife Devi Pramoda Wadiyar adopted Yaduveer Wadiyar, who was anointed as the maharaja of Mysore and the head of the family in 2015. Residences Mysore Palace has been the official residence of the Wadiyars for most of the family's recorded history. Briefly, Srirangapattana was also the seat of the Wadiyars. By the early 1900s, Bangalore had seen significant infrastructural development and had become a secondary residence for the Wadiyars at the Bangalore Palace. Alamelamma's Curse With a declining Vijayanagara Empire, in 1610 Raja Wadiyar conquered the fort of Srirangapattana from Tirumala, the Vijayanagara viceroy stationed there. Tirumala is said to have retired to the nearby town of Talakadu with his two wives. At about the same time, Tirumala suffered from a terminal disease; his condition deteriorated and he eventually died. One of his wives was Alamelamma, a staunch devotee of Ranganayaki, the consort of Lord Ranganatha, the presiding deity of the famous Adi-Ranga temple in the island