Bharatiya Janata Party's southern ally Al India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday reiterated its stand against the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
For the first time in recent times, rebellion was open in the monolithic AIADMK with party workers wanting change of candidates in so many places.
The All India Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam and the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam on Monday joined hands in Rajya Sabha to demand that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should not attend Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka in November.
AIADMK insiders see the very idea of an NDA conclave as a measure of the BJP's current electoral assessment, stemming from relative weakness in 2024 compared to 2014 and 2019. In their reckoning, the BJP now needs allies more than the other way round, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday questioned Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party chief K Annamalai's intention to criticise the party despite being in the alliance, and said it will be forced to rethink its ties with the saffron party if Annamalai is not restrained.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling DMK has already announced it will file a review petition against the November 8 five-judge Supreme Court bench upholding the 10 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Sections.
Taking a swipe at DMK president's statement that the party would take steps to implement prohibition if voted to power in the next elections, AIADMK said it was done with an eye on polls.
'We are not worried about raids. We have nothing to hide.'
Stalin, along with senior leader K N Nehru began the fast at 9 am at Uzhavar Sandhai grounds.
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
It is a sea of men clad in veshtis with distinctive party colour border design seeking votes with a smile and folded hands for their party candidates. The town is abuzz, with electioneering at its peak, and teeming trendy cars criss-cross the busy roads and bylanes bringing in more and more leaders from elsewhere for campaign.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
With Tamil Nadu reeling under acute power shortage, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday squarely blamed the Congress-led UPA and her arch rival Dravida Munettra Kazhagam for the crisis but said load-shedding would gradually ease from next month and the state will be free of power cuts from end 2013.
Following up on her successful rally in Trichy in the run-up to the 2011 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president J Jayalaithaa on Monday staged a mammoth rally in Madurai.
'"Pakistan will come and bite you" doesn't work here.'
"The DMK is not worried a wee bit," he said on the ED searches. Such an action by the ED was 'usual, ordinary and a drama' enacted to divert attention.
J K Ritheesh, a Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam member of Parliament and five others were arrested in connection with a clash between his partymen and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam-All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam workers at Kalavankudi in the district, police said here on Tuesday.
'This is the real purpose behind the arrest, and it is not about controlling corruption.' 'It is like taking Amit Shah into custody before the 2024 elections.' 'How will it affect the BJP's election machinery?'
Panneerselvam had opposed the petition saying the whip was issued only to the 122 MLAs who were then camping in a resort and not his erstwhile group.
In the backdrop of more and more Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leaders coming under the police net for their alleged roles in land grabbing cases, a party advocate has moved the National Human Rights Commission alleging violation of rights and charging ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam with indulging in vendetta politics.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
In Karunanidhi's passing the real loser is Tamil Nadu and Tamil language. So far there is no one on the horizon to fill the vacuum left behind by him, says R Rajagopalan.
'Even though we are very religious and God fearing, we do not subscribe to the kind of Hindutva they practise, a very hierarchical, Brahmanical, Hindutva.'
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalithaa on Wednesday claimed that the Tamil Nadu government had refused to pay the daily allowance to security personnel on poll duty and alleged that the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam might create violence in the event of their absence.
In the continuing crackdown by All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government on land grabbing, the Tirupur Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam deputy secretary Nagaraj was arrested on Saturday for allegedly threatening a man with dire consequences if he filed a complaint with the police over a piece of land near the town.
The BJP and the AIADMK are unable to sort out ideological differences, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The DMK, AIADMK, PMK, BJP gear up for next May's assembly elections.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Wednesday appointed Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and invited him to form the government after he staked claim, submitting a letter on his election as legislature party leader.
The actor-turned-politician did not suffer any injury in the incident.
He also launched a strident attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he was 'globe-trotting', afraid of facing questions over the Manipur violence.
Stalin is preparing the DMK to go the whole hog in making 'federalism', 'Tamil self-respect' and 'communal cohesiveness' the party's poll plank next year, and package the BJP and its possible allies, as 'divisive' and 'reactionary', predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
In New Delhi The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam during winter session of Parliament would maintain neutrality, but will oppose the United Progressive Alliance-II's stance on price rise and the Kudankulam issues.
Palanivel Thiaga Rajan was on the hit-list, not because the chief minister was unhappy with his performance, but because there were constant complaints from other ministers that he was sitting on their files far too long, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
DMK president M Karunanidhi on Monday said the AIADMK's victory in the byelections to the Tamil Nadu assembly from Kancheepuram and Gummidipoondi was due to 'misuse of official machinery'.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
The opposition AIADMK's discomfiture is likely to work in favour of the ruling DMK-backed Congress candidate.
Dubbing Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam as an "evil force", All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday accused it of 'conniving' with ally Congress and the United Progressive Alliance government to create hurdles in Tamil Nadu's progress.
Palaniswami has won from Edappadi four times (1989, 1991, 2011 and 2016) and the region is among the strongholds of the ruling party.
