Former Union Minister and the Congress candidate for the Mayiladuthurai Lok Sabha seat, Mani Shankar Aiyar strongly believes that the good work done by him as an MP for the constituency over the past two decades will fetch him a comfortable victory in the upcoming polls.
NDA ally, the TDP continued to disrupt the both Houses of the Parliament over demand for special status to Andhra Pradesh.
A senior political commentator has said that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha is the modern 'Mahishasur Mardini' who has taken birth to trounce the Congress in Tamil Nadu.
An adverse judgement could have triggered a political realignment in Tamil Nadu and brought the ruling party perilously close to losing its majority in the state assembly whose effective strength is 232. Two seats are vacant.
If Tamil Nadu is to avoid a hung assembly, it is up to the silent voters, whose combined strength is more than that of the two major combines in the fray, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
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.
The 71-year-old Dalit leader is expected to have a smooth sailing in the event of an election.
The newly-formulated Third Front left its imprint in Parliament on the opening day of the reconvened winter session when it surprised the ruling coalition by derailing the Anti-Communal Violence Bill
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.
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
It looks as if competing political parties in Tamil Nadu have not grasped the full impact and import of a sizable section of voters possibly staying away from voting -- voters, supposedly with a predictable polling pattern -- owing to the Covid second wave and more so, how it could affect the outcome in individual constituencies and even booths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Now that Tamil Nadu's tallest politician is no more, it remains to be seen how new political re-alignments could shape up, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Mr Vajapyee felt that you could pray to any god or not pray at all, but the country comes first.'
Barring one of the earliest surveys of the kind in the country, in 1989, none has proved right in Tamil Nadu's case, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK swept the polls winning 37 of the 39 seats, leaving DMK, its rivals, and the BJP to do a serious rethinking before the assembly elections in 2016, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The AIADMK chief filed her nomination papers for June 27 bypoll to the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly constituency.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
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.
Former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju, currently chairman of Press Council of India, on Monday stirred a controversy by alleging that three ex-Chief Justices of India had compromised in giving extension to an additional judge of Madras high court at the instance of the United Progressive Alliance government in the wake of pressure from one of its allies, apparently Dravida Munnetra Kazahagham.
The prime minister pointed out that such infamous incidents occurred during the Congress rule.
Top BJP leaders, including its president Amit Shah, reached out to their allies as well as other parties with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar expressing confidence that the government will get support from 'new' parties.
It would be good if all political parties understood the advantages, he said.
A massive swing of 21.3 per cent in vote share propelled the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to coast to a resounding victory in 37 of the 39 seats leaving miles behind rivals including the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Congress, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu.
As political rivals clamour to retain their pan-Tamil credentials, the BJP may use the 'nationalist' card to even the odds in its favour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The mandate will help further the development agenda in these states, with good governance and policy reforms taking centrestage
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.
The ruling All India Anna DMK bagged 37 out of the 39 seats in the state, with the Bharatiya Janata Party winning one seat and its alliance partner the Pattali Makkal Katchi winning one.
The BJP is contesting 437 seats this election, the Congress 423.
It's been 15 straight days that opposition parties have created a ruckus, forcing adjournment of proceedings.
In one village, a woman asks, "They are always showing cash seizures on television, you think some of it will escape and we will get money as usual?" "Only 1 percent of cash is actually seized, the rest has arrived, you don't worry," a party worker assures her. Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar reports on the election in the southern-most tip of the country.
The National Democratic Alliance government's parliamentary managers have a busy weekend ahead, says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Besides the SAD, the SP, the AIADMK and the TRS supported the idea; while the AAP, the TDP, the JD-S, the AIFB, the DMK, the TMC, the GFP and Left parties opposed it.
In an indication of its vexation with ally BJP, the Shiv Sena on Friday said it will contest 20 seats in electorally vital Uttar Pradesh, but the BJP downplayed it saying they share "strong and old" ties and are "inseparable".
'Each of them is a setu (bridge) that links the government with the party, but their territories are different.'
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam might have been pushed into a corner to come up with a prohibition policy of its own, if only to create the right atmosphere for talking about an Opposition coalition in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
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.
Chances of holding early assembly polls in Telangana and Seema-Andhra, along with the Lok Sabha elections, seem unlikely, says Renu Mittal
Vijaykanth on Sunday kickstarted the first major political move in Tamil Nadu, and against the ruling AIADMK, ahead of the 2016 assembly polls. But what if Jayalalithaa were to win the 'wealth case' ultimately? N Sathiya Moorthy explores the scenario arising from the Supreme Court's order in the Jaya case on Tuesday.
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