V K Sasikala, late J Jayalalithaa's confidante would return to Tamil Nadu on February 7 from Bengaluru and a grand welcome from party cadres awaited her right from the state's border, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary T T V Dinakaran said in Madurai on Wednesday.
Every vote now counts in the Tamil Nadu assembly, as the ruling party is walking on a wafer-thin majority. The Opposition DMK-led combine has 98 MLAs on their side, and with four others who had won on the AIADMK's 'Two Leaves' symbol in 2016 but do not belong to the party, per se, playing hide-and-seek with the party leadership, Dhinakaran with two or three other MLAs can give sleepless nights for the ruling party than their post-verdict celebrations may seemingly indicate, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Venugopal told the court that he had given legal opinion to the AIADMK faction led by Panneerselvam.
'Both are mature enough to realise that a break will not benefit either of them and both will be losers'
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ending its decade long stint in the opposition, even relegated to the third spot in the House in 2011, the M K Stalin-led Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam made a spirited comeback to the ruling saddle to unseat its rival the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
'A person who came to take care of Jayalalithaa's personal needs slowly took control of her political life.'
Two days after staking claim with him to form the government amidst political turmoil in Tamil Nadu, AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala on Saturday sought an appointment with Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao to parade MLAs supporting her before him.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
'The BJP doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
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.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress-led government in Puducherry on Monday lost the confidence vote sought by Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, in the face of its depleted strength of 11 against the opposition's 14 following resignation of ruling dispensation MLAs, including a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislator.
Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi on Thursday staged an unprecedented walkout from the state assembly following a face-off with Chief Minister M K Stalin over the former's customary address to members of the house in its first session of the year.
The AIADMK propaganda secretary also claimed "Panneerselvam is instable." State minister C Ve Shanmugam called Panneerselvam "a betrayer".
Utter confusion prevails in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
The Palaniswami camp on Friday got a jolt when one of its MLAs R Natraj, a former state DGP, said that he would vote against the chief minister's motion of confidence.
While in the AIADMK office you could feel the vibes of victory, at OPS' house you could feel the struggle.
"A letter addressed to the governor, bearing my signature, is being circulated stating that I will kill myself. I would like to say that this letter is fake. It shows that there are some people, who cannot tolerate a lady's entry in electoral politics," Sasikala said.
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Police later let the legislators off after a brief detention at a marriage hall. Stalin demanded the dismissal of the AIADMK government over the issue of the alleged pay-offs.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP will be the obvious gainer while the DMK will lose a major chunk of its vote bank.
The by-elections to 18 assembly constituencies will decide if the ruling AIADMK remains in power or not.
"We will work together jointly as two hands of AIADMK in future for the people of Tamil Nadu. He asked for justice. I too ask the same," Deepa told reporters.
With the unanticipated floods across Tamil Nadu catching the unprepared administration unawares, Stalin finds that some of the early positives that had rubbed on his initiatives have been lost, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
But not for too long, as TTV Dinakaran can still play spoilsport, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP President Amit Shah has authorised Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu to liaise with M Thambidurai and TTV Dinakaran from the Sasikala camp, just in case it turns against the BJP after the income tax raids on its health minister C Vijayabaskar.
In a major boost to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, three All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Parliament, state School Education Minister K Pandiarajan and veteran AIADMK leader and spokesman C Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined his dissident camp.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Tuesday once again adopted the anti-NEET Bill, returned days ago to the government by Governor RN Ravi, with the ruling Dravida Munentra Kazhagam and principal opposition All India Anna DK reaffirming their opposition to the test.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazagham on Monday named two party nominees for the Rajya Sabha election and announced that the third seat was being allotted to ally Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
With election campaign ending in Tamil Nadu before it goes to polls on Thursday, N Sathiya Moorthy lists a few questions uppermost in the minds of voters.
K Pandiarajan has filed a petition in the apex court in which he has sought a direction for quashing Speaker P Dhanapal's decision rejecting the demand for a secret ballot to determine the outcome of the floor test.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday said it would soon move a no-confidence motion against Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal as it accused him of "deliberately harping on his community to malign" the party.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said the situation in Bihar is one of the reasons behind the Parliament session being cut short by the government.
The BJP has been pushing the two AIADMK groups to merge and then get the Sasikala clan out of the party and government.
'There is no doubt that Sasikala wanted the transition to go this way.' 'The only thing the AIADMK MLAs want is to stay in power.'
The chief minister still has time to repair the damage but he will have to act all-round, both at the government and party levels, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
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