MDMK General Secretary Vaiko meets Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and gets 10 seats more than what he wanted from DMK
'If the Congress is to challenge the NDA government, Rahul Gandhi will have to shed his indifference to Parliament, become more visible and vocal and, essentially, lead from the front,' says Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
Scripting history, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday stormed to power in Assam bagging a government in the north east for the first time dethroning the Congress which also lost Kerala while Jayalalithaa and Mamata Banerjee retained power in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal with spectacular victories.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year old Stalin, for whom this would be the first stint as CM
Sandhya Ravishankar describes the thorny relationship between the two political titans of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, both now part of the ages.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the government is ready for a discussion on the issue of alleged financial irregularities in the banking sector and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will reply to the debate.
The Congress president addressing women students at the Stella Maris College said that the law must apply to everybody and not be applied selectively.
In the next two years, reveals says R Rajagopalan, Modi-Shah will make a strong effort to woo the south.
Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK may choose to capitalise on the confusion within opposition ranks and hope to ride to power on Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's popularity, writes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A weak presence in the Rajya Sabha has forced the NDA to try and rope in 'weak links' in the Opposition ranks to pass key legislation in the Upper House.
But there is no serious threat because the NDA government has a decisive majority.
'Whenever a new film of his releases, he uses politics to hype his film.' 'Her party can manage for a short period without Jayalalithaa as the chief minister but if her absence is for a long term, the AIADMK will start crumbling and disintegrating.' 'What keeps the DMK going despite its corrupt image is it is a democratic party in comparison to the AIADMK... Also, many social welfare measures in Tamil Nadu were brought in by the DMK. So they do have a place in the political scene despite corruption.' Gnani Sankaran, the well-known political analyst, discusses the fallout of Jayalalithaa's conviction on Tamil Nadu politics with Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com
'Tamil Nadu will never allow the Centre's three-language policy'
The acquittal allows her to plan a new political path and also prepare her party for the assembly elections scheduled next year.
'No, that is not an abbreviation for the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha,' says T V R Shenoy, 'but for J Jayalalithaa-Mamata Banerjee-Mayawati-Mulayam Singh Yadav... If the AIADMK, the Trinamool Congress, and other regional forces do extremely well, we could be heading for a repetion of the 9th Lok Sabha (1989 to 1991) and the 11th Lok Sabha (1996 to 1998), each of which saw multiple prime ministers and neither of which lasted even half of its five-year term.'
'Nobody is telling you not to speak or learn your mother tongue. But making other languages an emotional issue is wrong.'
With election fever rising in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi in court promised to be more than just a regular court hearing.
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.
Truth be acknowledged, Rajinikanth is not known for wanting to leave his comfort zone to take the politico-electoral plunge, even if it meant his becoming the chief minister of a state that has conferred Tamil cinema's superstardom on him over the past 25 years. Today, his fans belong to the younger generation all right, but their numbers are far fewer than their counterparts in the '90s. They are not devoid of personal ambitions and agendas, unlike what Rajinikanh wants them to be, if he and they were to enter politics, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
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.
For Rajnikanth, who the BJP is wooing, politics looks more likely to happen in 2019, although his friend Kamalahaasan could afford to wait a little longer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
'Kamal Haasan always appeared to be quick to strike, but afraid to wound.' 'What he is offering the people of Tamil Nadu is not clear, but whatever it is, it will be a fresh element in the state's politics,' says Aditi Phadnis.
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
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 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.
Why did such a 'socially conscientious' people adapt to cash-for-votes and the like, as fish to water? N Sathiya Moorthy offers an explanation.
Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin does not face any threat to his full-fledged succession as DMK chief, just now. If he were to face any threat, it would only be against 'non-performance' as the party boss, N Sathiya Moorthy.
NDA ally, the TDP continued to disrupt the both Houses of the Parliament over demand for special status to Andhra Pradesh.
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 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.
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 chief filed her nomination papers for June 27 bypoll to the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly constituency.
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.
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.
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.
