In the absence of the over-arching 'Jaya charisma', EPS has to convince the AIADMK's traditional constituencies, including those in his western districts, that his leadership would stand up against the BJP-led Centre even in a post-poll scenario, a la Jayalalithaa, and would not yield as much as party founder MGR had done, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The party's Lok Sabha MPs Jaisingh Thiyagaraj Natterjee (Tuticorin), Senguttuvan (Vellore) and R P Marutharaja (Perambalur) extended their support to Pannerselvam.
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.
If something stands out in the one year since Jayalalithaa's passing, it would be her famed leadership qualities and her ability to reach out to the party and the people above the second line, and also the state administration, to the exclusion of all the rest. Only Indira Gandhi had achieved it all in her time, and no other leader, possibly excepting Prime Modi Modi, could hold a candle to that, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Narendra Modi's meeting with J Jayalalithaa in Chennai has set the rumour mills abuzz. Will the Tamil Nadu chief minister ally with the BJP ahead of the 2016 polls, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Karnataka government is divided over filing an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittal of former Tamil Nadu chief minister. N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the possibilities
Lawyers for jailed All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo J Jayalalithaa will move the Karnataka high court on Monday for bail for her while they were also finalising a strategy for seeking a stay on her conviction and sentence in the disproportionate assets case.
Tamil nadu Chief Minister and All India Dravida Munetra Kazhagam supremo J Jayalalithaa on Monday sacked three ministers and six district heads in the backdrop of her party's defeat in three Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Jaya described herself as the people's "beloved sister" and sought a mandate bigger than the last one -- during the bye-poll post her acquittal in a disproportionate assets case by Karnataka high court.
Should the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu not make the required five out of 22 by-election seats, or even otherwise, the temptation to poach, especially from the Congress or starting with the Congress may be high on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami's agenda, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The apex court's decision, which was handed down in eight minutes, has dashed any hopes for the Jayalalithaa aide to become CM.
The BJP has been pushing the two AIADMK groups to merge and then get the Sasikala clan out of the party and government.
At the best of times, ticket distribution in India's political parties is a tough business. The post-election result has to be judged, and judged correctly. It's an impossible job in view of the 814 million voters for whom the party bigwigs have to perform. Sheela Bhatt presents this light-hearted assessment of what's top of the mind for our political heavyweights.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
No one at this point no one in the state is talking about a clean sweep with high victory margins that the AIADMK front won in the 2011 assembly elections. The 'Modi factor', as against a 'Modi wave', has ensured as much, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
For the AIADMK, winning the Srirangam by-election without Jayalalithaa campaigning for it, and having Panneerselvam as chief minister, is saying a lot in its favour. But again, a year and more is a long time in electoral politics in the country, and more so in Tamil Nadu, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'It may take the AIADMK much more convincing than already, not only to try and bring around even the one-time Muslim voters of the party. 'More importantly, the party leadership may find it even more difficult to convince traditional party voters and cadres, who had admired Jaya's nonchalance to the party and leader ruling the Centre,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
AIADMK's Jayalalithaa won three assembly by-elections from her hospital bed. However, the DMK heir's decision to disempower second-line satraps, who were running personal fiefdoms in their districts, and his fresh approach, could prove beneficial in the next polls, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
More than the traditional Dravidian political rivalry that's now on display, it's boiling down to father-son one-upmanship within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Finance Minister P T R Palanivel Thiagarajan has proclaimed his determination to set Tamil Nadu's fiscal house in order in five years, and Friday will show how he plans to go about it when he rises to present the Stalin government's maiden budget, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
Rajinikanth will win the elections whenever they are held, predicts A Ganesh Nadar.
The court asked the parties concerned to give it the list of issues which 'needed to be decided in the case on January 8'.
On Tuesday night, the Tamil Nadu chief minister decides that enough is enough, and throws a challenge to Chinnamma.
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.
There is no denying that the Deepa identity has overnight caught the people's imagination across the state. But converting that into an imagery and from there as support and vote-base is a different matter altogether, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here are 15 things you should know about Bharat Ratna Atal Bihar Vajpayee.
If Team Rajini expected Kaala to carry the superstar's political message off-screen, it may have proved counter-productive. If the not-so-infrequent presence of Muslim residents of Dharavi, including that of Kaala's ex-love Zarina, in many scenes is expected to convey a political message, it is a no-brainer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Calculated or otherwise, if Azhagiri's firing of the first salvo after Karunanidhi's death does not create some space for him to politico-electorally exploit at a later date, there may not be any space left for him at all, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress on Monday joined other opposition parties, including the DMK and the PMK, in boycotting the June 27 by-election.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Friday ruled out extending any kind of support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government in the event of the party coming to power after the Lok Sabha polls.
A two-day meet of Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo began in New Delhi on Sunday amid attempts to bring all non-Congress, non-BJP parties on a common platform ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
To claim that Tamil Nadu was waiting for a messiah of the 'spiritual' Rajini kind is misplaced, if not mischievous, 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'.
But not for too long, as TTV Dinakaran can still play spoilsport, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A look at the financials of some of the key companies in the Sasikala clan's business empire.
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