Tamil Nadu Governor K Rosaiah on Friday accepted the resignation of Chief Minister O Panneerselvam and invited All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief Jayalalithaa to form the new government.
Counting of votes is underway for four Lok Sabha and eight assembly Constituencies, spread across six states and one Union Territory where by-elections were held on Saturday.
'Sasikala, already determined to keep both the party and CM's post for herself, might not be able to do it, if she were to wait any longer,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sumitra Mahajan will be appointed Speaker of the 16th Lok Sabha on Friday. Other key parliamentary posts like that of Leader of Opposition, deputy Speaker, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and head of the all-important standing committee on finance will be keenly contested.
Election for the post of Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker will take place on Wednesday and the nomination of candidate is slated for Tuesday.
The assembly polls in the state have shown that the GenNext voters want change -- not necessarily of leaderships but of their behaviour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 'AIADMK symbol issue' may be a fit case for the courts and the legislature to provide for a new law for application in similar fluid, dynamic political situations, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagham leader is set to embark on a series of protests covering the Cauvery basin regions of Tamil Nadu beginning Saturday.
After a gap of 10 days, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa turned up at the state secretariat on Wednesday, putting an end to the Opposition's queries regarding her health condition.
All set to take over as the Leader of the Opposition in the 15th Tamil Nadu sssembly, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam scion M K Stalin on Tuesday vowed to do justice to the post and take up people's issues in a constructive way in the legislature.
The TDP snapped its ties with the BJP alleging neglect of the southern state and failure of the Centre to grant special category state status to Andhra Pradesh.
'These protests are not just about the CAA. It is against allowing fascism and religious discrimination to creep into our legal system.'
Soon after the Karnataka high court denied bail for Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Paneerselvam on Tuesday appealed to people not to resort to strike or any other form of protest to express solidarity with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief as she would not like to cause inconvenience to the common man.
Tamil Nadu has around 30 per cent or more of 'swing voters', and it is this segment that will swing the pre-poll alliance decision, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Opposition members trooped into the Well, resorting to high-decibel sloganeering.
Even as political parties in TN have decided not to field a candidate against CM Jayalalithaa in the assembly by-election, the BJP's ambivalence has shown up once again.
After an initial close fight, AINRC managed to win only eight seats, including the Indira Nagar constituency by party founder and Chief Minister N Rangasamy.
Former Union Communication Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham leader Dayanidhi Maran, who stepped down from his post in the wake of allegations of a scam in 2011, is leaving no stone unturned to retain the Chennai Central parliamentary seat which he won twice consecutively.
With Tamil Nadu's electoral fate decided, all eyes would now veer round to the pending 'disproportionate assets case' against Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court, and Stalin's own future within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
If proven guilty by judge Michael d'Cunha, Jayalalithaa and her aides -- Sasikakala Natrajan, Sudhakaran and Ilavarasi -- could face up to six years in jail.
Noisy protests disrupted the both houses of the Parliament on the first day of the second part of the budget session
The Congress, however, said it wanted to see the final print on the wording of the dispute resolution mechanism before committing its support to the Bill
Obviously, the not-so warm vibes between the two during the recent election season is a thing of the past, with Jaya scheduled to offer the Tamil angavastram as a mark of respect to Modi in his South Block office.
Opposition parties in Tamil Nadu, led by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, on Tuesday appealed to President Pratibha Patil to give consent for use of Tamil as the official language in Madras high court before attending the World Classical Tamil Conference in Coimbatore this week.
It should not surprise anyone if either of the contending parties in the 'TN speaker's case' comes up with a submission for referring the matter of 'speaker's powers' to a Constitution Bench. In political terms it could buy more time for the Edappadi camp, to settle down and stabilise itself, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 2015 RK Nagar bypoll, in which Jayalalithaa was elected by a huge margin of 1.5 lakh votes, had witnessed a record 75% turnout
The judiciary has often shied away from contesting the speaker's right or that of the legislature, but it has not always avoided taking a close look at the processes employed and arrive at conclusions that are binding on all concerned, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ongoing row over the UPSC issue saw disruption of Parliamentary proceedings on Tuesday as opposition parties demanded a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a joint parliamentary committee to look into the matter besides a discussion on it.
If the already demoralised Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, beaten worse by the shocking parliamentary poll debacle in May 2014 thought that the political set-back suffered by rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, in the light of a Bangalore court ordering a jail-term for her in September was a boon for their leadership, it's not to be.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu alleged that it was the Centre which ensured the disruption by provoking All India Anna Dravida MUnnetra Kazhagam over the Cauvery issue.
Various opposition parties like the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Communist Party of India, and the Communist Party of India-Marxist raised vociferous protests in the upper house while opposing the resolution and the bill.
The two Houses were adjourned for the day amid sparring between the treasury and the opposition benches on the issue.
The former union home and finance minister also alleged that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government would not have taken the bold decision had Jammu and Kashmir been a "Hindu-dominated" state.
Both the Houses of Parliament adjourned amid opposition demands for resignation of Telecom Minister A Raja for his alleged involvement in the reported scam in allocation of 2G spectrum on Monday.
The 71-year-old Dalit leader is expected to have a smooth sailing in the event of an election.
BJP-led govt will need regional parties' support in Upper House to get legislation cleared. Archis Mohan reports
'Naidu understands electoral calculus, that the regional parties are yet to gain confidence in Rahul as a vote-catcher,' points out R Rajagopalan.
Natarajan was admitted to the hospital on Saturday with severe chest infection and was put on ventilator support.
'The Godse controversy may have helped Kamal Haasan reach out to a larger audience, both inside the state and outside, coming as it does when the main campaign for elections 19 is over and only those in the four assembly bypoll constituencies are drudging along,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Tamil chief minister suffered a heart attack on Sunday evening.