The prime minister said the opposition's hatred against him was reaching new levels daily and they have a competition over who abused him the most.
Dinakaran said he was revealing the information now since Panneerselvam was being critical of him in public fora, even while making efforts to mend fences.
The Andhra CM charged the BJP and Centre with 'mud-slinging' and trying to 'damage his credibility'.
The interim order was passed on petitions by Stalin and Dinakaran loyalist MLA P Vetrivel.
The front-runner of course is party treasurer and long-serving party legislator, S Duraimurugan. A Vanniar by caste from the rival PMK-strong northern belt, Duraimurugan makes up for his weak political grounding through his debating skills in the assembly, and witty repartee, both inside and outside. Apart from caste and regional representation, personal loyalty to the leader would count even more -- but there is no death of loyal and competent candidates in the party for the post, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The first COVID-19 vaccine shots in India were given on Saturday to nearly two lakh frontline healthcare and sanitary workers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest inoculation drive against the pandemic that has caused 1,52,093 deaths and upended millions of lives in the country.
The sub-quota scheme may now lead to a ganging up of non-Vanniyars in individual constituencies against the Vanniyars just as in the past, such ganging up against SC-ST candidates was seen in the non-quota constituencies, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Whenever they are announced, the bypolls to 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be a mini referendum on the state government's performance. It will also be a do-or-die battle for the ruling AIADMK, opposition DMK, as well as the rebel AMMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Post Jayalalithaa's death, the Tamil Nadu government is in confused state.
A new political crisis is brewing in the VK Sasikala camp in Tamil Nadu -- differences between Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami and party general secretary Sasikala.
The superstar blamed anti-social elements for the anti-Sterlite protests last week that resulted in 13 deaths in police firing, and called for a Jayalalithaa-style 'iron fist' policy to crush such people in the interest of Tamil Nadu.
Here is the glimpse of the political turn of events in the state
This is perhaps for the first time the CBI raided a serving police chief of a state.
Stalin disapproved of the act of some his party legislators sitting in the chair of Speaker P Dhanapal in the assembly.
Stalin has given due respect to seniority in the pecking order, but has also taken into consideration the demands of individual ministries and the suitability of individuals, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK has Stalin and Stalin alone as the key campaigner. The rest of them all, including half-sister Kanimozhi, are tied down to their own constituencies while those like party treasurer and former minister S Duraimurugan, to those of their children's constituencies.
Truth be acknowledged, Rajinikanth is not known for wanting to leave his comfort zone to take the politico-electoral plunge, even if it meant his becoming the chief minister of a state that has conferred Tamil cinema's superstardom on him over the past 25 years. Today, his fans belong to the younger generation all right, but their numbers are far fewer than their counterparts in the '90s. They are not devoid of personal ambitions and agendas, unlike what Rajinikanh wants them to be, if he and they were to enter politics, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Official celebrations in most states were restricted to unfurling of the national flag and chief ministers and governors addressing the people, with fewer guests in attendance.
Taking Karnataka to task for its repeated "defiance" by flouting its orders for release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court on Friday asked it to discharge 6,000 cusecs water from tomorrow till October 6, warning no one would know when the "wrath of the law" would fall on it.
From Chief Minister EK Palaniswami to Seeman to TTV Dhinakaran to elder brother M K Azhagiri, everyone's favourite target these days seems to the DMK chief Stalin, which is good news in an election year, but that doesn't mean he is going to sweep the polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar journeys through villages and towns, districts and cities for a reality check.
A photograph of Kumar snapped while scurrying across the bridge with the child two days ago, has gone viral on the social media with people showering praise on him.
What will the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government do to answer the queries and fears of investors who will want to be doubly sure they would not be harassed at a later date, as has been happening to Sterlite, should be interesting to watch, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If Vijaykanth and his party stole the media thunder, which lingered in the viewers' mind even while watching Prime Minister Modi's thunderous campaign speech, the latter suffered also owing to visible 'disconnects', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
In true Karnataka political style, which cuts across parties and loyalties, any reinstatement of Yeddiyurappa, even with adequate legislative majority, could trigger rebellion from within, which could embarrass the Modi-Shah duo than any other development elsewhere in the country, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Tamil Nadu government welcomed the decision, hailing it as a 'grand victory for the 'Amma (Jayalalithaa) government' and the state's farmers'.
'To them, the day may not be far off when the state BJP starts claiming and propagating that Modi is next only to AIADMK's late boss Jayalalithaa,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Cassandras and Congressis may sneer at the findings, but the Times Now poll indicated that the Modi government was very much on its way to a second term.
Former Chief Minister Panneerselvam could muster only 11 votes, ending the prolonged stalemate triggered by his rebellion.
As the merger brought to an end weeks of suspense during which there was tough negotiations, the two factions said steps would be taken to expel party chief V K Sasikala.
Now that an elected chief minister is at the helm, it is high time the Centre initiate discussions to appoint a full-time governor at the earliest, given that the state is set to face some challenging times, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
At 70, going by hospital records made public, most age and health-related arguments put out against super-star Rajinikanth's entry into politics, before he withdrew citing a 2016 kidney-transplant, hold good for Sasikala, too, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Not only have we rescued 1,700 fishermen but on the morning of November 30, we evacuated 1,044 fishing folk, otherwise the missing numbers would have been much higher.'
Modi assured to extend all required assistance to the state to face the situation, the Chief Minister's office said.
Rajini's call may now force other political parties, including the DMK and the Congress, who are in alliance talks already, to come up with water proposals of their own in their poll manifesto. In a way, this may be a 'tactical victory' for Rajinikanth, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Of the 20 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, eight were from Maharashtra, three each from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, two from Jammu and Kashmir and one each from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Though many fishermen were brought ashore safely and admitted to hospitals, many are yet to recover from the shock of wrestling the lashing waves and seeing death face-to-face.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances