Pawar and his Manch can deliberate to their hearts' content, but so long as the Congress does not play ball the BJP has little to worry, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
Educationist Madan Mohan Malviya and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee are the 44th and 45th distinguished personalities who have been conferred with the country's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna.
A wall hanging featuring Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad left the prime minister in awe
On its own or with allies the Congress has a strong presence in states that account for a total of 253 LS seats, or 20 short of the magic figure of 272 required to form a government at the Centre. So what is Mamata Banerjee talking about, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK's staying power is not in question, but it has to regain the winning streak. That will require its leaders and leadership to re-wire themselves, to be able to re-think situations in ways different from what they had been accustomed to, suggests Sathiya Moorthy.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'A recent compromise by the state government is accepting NEET exams for medical entrance.'
'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
Anything can happen, says a young Congress leader.
'Since the two successive drubbings of the Congress have rung the alarm bells about the party's future, the need to chart a new course cannot be delayed any further,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Reacting to the criticism, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam said the government could not initially allot space at the Marina beach for burying the DMK leader due to pending cases against construction of memorials on the famous sands.
Attacking the Tamil Nadu chief minister over a host of issues, including unemployment, he alleged that her rule was marked by corruption and that industries had migrated to other states
Pon Radhakrishnan is also a Union minister of state. His opponent is the richest candidate in Tamil Nadu.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa's electioneering using helicopter to criss-cross Tamil Nadu has become a poll plank for opposition parties in the state as the campaign gathers momentum.
A time has thus come when state encouragement for rural students led to empowerment of the socio-economically marginalised sections of the population. It included women. Today, with greater exposure and consequent enlightenment, it has gone beyond 'empowerment' to become 'entitlement', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Back of the envelope calculations put government expense on each of the new schemes promised by the DMK and the AIADMK at tens of thousands of crores. But then, neither party has said how they are going to also address the mounting debt burden either, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If the Congress lost in Tamil Nadu in 1967, never to return, or the DMK and the AIADMK have kept their place in power and electoral politics since then, it owes not to their love or hatred for gods or for one religion over another. Instead, they had always been linked to performance and incumbency/anti-incumbency factors. There may be something in such constructs for Rajini's strategic team to consider, especially if the superstar is to enter direct politics by around this time next year. But then, they would need to brush up their homework more than at present, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Last night someone threw stones at my house at 11 pm. My car was also smashed.'
Facing the opposition benches, it is the 11th portrait to adorn the House.
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.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
Several members in the Lok Sabha on Friday pitched for making voting compulsory, saying that such a move would help curb corruption and instances of electorate being influenced through illegal means during elections.
'He is 47 years old and not married. Since his son or daughter can contest for Parliament only 25 years after being born, the earliest, if he marries in December, would be 2043.' 'So this, pretty much, is the end of the road for dynastic rule in the party,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
Farm loan waivers should not be regarded as expenditure but as incentive and investment, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'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.
'Whatever good he did, all his achievements were overshadowed by the perception of corruption and other things.'
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Of the 15 people who led the 132-year-old party post independence, four have belonged to the Gandhi-Nehru family.
Sonia Gandhi spends just 30 minutes in Kanyakumari to promote 39 candidates in Tamil Nadu. A Ganesh Nadar listens in.
'In the hands of a majoritarian government, with utter contempt for the cultural plurality and diversity of our great nation, the pipe dream of making Hindi the sole official language takes on nightmarish proportions.'
He said the NDA's work culture was different from that of the previous governments.
Neither emotions nor a structured approach to addressing critical issues came out in Kamal Hassan's inaugural speech on Wednesday, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a state where Hindu social identity continues to remain in the overarching Dravida umbrella, the 'Hindutva' political identity does not have the same, or even near-similar electoral purchase, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
He challenged the Congress to select someone 'capable' as its president, who did not belong to 'that one family'.
'Rahul is only making a pathetic public spectacle of his lack of judgment and good sense by hallucinating that somehow, the Congress, or whatever political combine is cobbled together, will displace the BJP at the coming Lok Sabha election by constantly harping on the Rafale deal,' argues retired civil servant B S Raghavan.
The question is no longer whether he will win 2019; it's what he will do with the new status, says Shekhar Gupta.
'I see the queen bee kind of syndrome.' 'When they know that there is a queen bee, the bees will hang around her for some time and then fly away.' 'I won't be surprised if somebody else takes the place of the queen bee.'
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