'To them, the day may not be far off when the state BJP starts claiming and propagating that Modi is next only to AIADMK's late boss Jayalalithaa,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
P Balakrishna Reddy was sentenced Reddy to three years rigorous imprisonment in a two-decade old riot case related to a protest against illicit liquor in Hosur.
Though the 2019 alliance talks, if any, are a long way off, CM Jaya's current state of health and her long hospitalisation maybe a facilitating factor for the AIADMK to consider any BJP initiative favourably at the time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Soundararajan is heard telling the student and the people who gathered at the lounge that a plane was no place to raise slogans.
Modi's non-reference could also imply that the BJP may be keeping its alliance options open vis--vis the AIADMK. It could also imply that the BJP's national leadership had not given up on the DMK returning to power in the state post-poll, and the Centre having to do business with a new government in Fort St George, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The political stability that Tamil Nadu saw under Chief Minister Jayalalithaa may be a thing of the past, as the new administration struggles to find its feel, says R Rajagopalan.
Strategy or confusion? The Tamil Nadu BJP has many reasons to feel let down by Prime Minister Modi's whistlestop tour to the state on Tuesday, says R Ramasubramanian.
The two Houses would now meet on December 27 as there would be no sitting on December 24 and December 26 in view of Christmas.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any 'transferrable vote-bank' even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
DMK Working President MK Stalin is worried about divisions in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam after the death of Jayalalithaa and keen that it should not affect the functioning of the administration.
Two more infants, shifted from Dharmapuri Government Hospital to Salem, died on Wednesday pushing the toll of toddlers to 13, as the opposition parties called for a probe in the incident.
The government on Friday said in Rajya Sabha that it is "not in favour" of abolishing the capital punishment considering the "prevailing circumstances" in the country.
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.
If purists are surprised as to why and how people are not demanding prohibition or not talking about past promises, both in the election manifestos five years back and even those made to the courts, the answer lies in how the state has been evolving and changing these past few years, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Utter confusion prevails in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
Vijayakanth's DMDK may play a key role as Tamil Nadu's political parties scramble for allies to capture the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats.
The apex court, in a plethora of verdicts, has given varying judicial opinions on Speakers' powers ranging from refusing to intervene in the matter to assuming the role of the Speaker itself and going to the extent of disqualifying lawmakers under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
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.
The BJP calculates that simultaneous polls to Parliament and TN assembly could help it, intent as it is on making the state break from its Dravidian past, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The AIADMK has no Number Two, frankly it does not even have a Number Hundred and Two. There is the Numero Uno, and there is everybody else -- a point that was made very clear when Jayalalithaa made her ministers take the oath of office in unison on May 23. What, after all, was the point of having them do so individually when they lack individuality?'
This is perhaps for the first time the CBI raided a serving police chief of a state.
Given the twin embarrassments of a TTV win and party nominee Karu Nagarajan losing his deposit, polling fewer votes than NOTA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP boss Amit Shah would be pushed to rethink their strategy. Tamil Nadu would thus become a part of the BJP's grander strategy for 2019 rather than a stand-alone affair, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
DMK working president M K Stalin led a protest in Chennai and sought promulgation of an ordinance to allow holding the sport.
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
Turmoil over Telangana statehood and a variety of other issues paralysed proceedings in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday prompting a comment from the Chair that he was "disturbed" and "disappointed" over lack of consensus to run the House.
The incident that came to light on Saturday came days after a farmer was beaten up by the police in the state over non-payment of loan.
The BJP's relations with some alliance partners, including its oldest ally the Shiv Sena, Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United, Akali Dal and Rashtriya Lok Samta Party of Union minister Upendra Kushwaha, have been somewhat tense, and Shah's comments are being seen as an attempt to smooth their ruffled feathers.
O Paneerselvam did not even sit in Jayalalithaa's office chamber and left her seat vacant in the assembly. This time Amma is not coming back and he has a large number of challenges awaiting him.
It is thanks to these internal differences that the much-awaited merger between the two factions has not made any headway so far, reports R Rajagopalan.
If the AIADMK falls short of the 117-mark required to form a government in the 234-member assembly, will it strike a post-poll deal to form Tamil Nadu's first coalition government? N Sathiyamorthy analyses.
62 candidates vye for Amma's mantle in the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly by-poll in Tamil Nadu, but who will fortune favour?
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.
Subramanian Swamy stole the BJP thunder in Tamil Nadu by meeting DMDK's Vijaykanth in Chennai, and his efforts seem to have paid off, at least in the interim, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The agitation saw the participation of 147 farmers when it started, which number swelled to 325 by the time it ended.
It said the by-election will be held in 'due course when the vitiating effect created by the distribution of money and gift items to allure the electors...gets removed with the passage of time'.
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.
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