The Modi juggernaut is all set to paint the five south Indian states in saffron colours, writes R Rajagopalan.
The 2015 RK Nagar bypoll, in which Jayalalithaa was elected by a huge margin of 1.5 lakh votes, had witnessed a record 75% turnout
She faced intense and protracted struggle to eventually head the AIADMK.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'As she has been sentenced to 4 years in prison, her disqualification period begins after that for 6 years, totaling the next 10 years of her life, which may indicate that her legislative career in politics is over for the time being.'
Counting of votes is underway for four Lok Sabha and eight assembly Constituencies, spread across six states and one Union Territory where by-elections were held on Saturday.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
National politics will have a bearing on the RK Nagar byelections, and even in the state elections whenever they are called, says R Rajagopal.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
Soundararajan is heard telling the student and the people who gathered at the lounge that a plane was no place to raise slogans.
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 two Houses would now meet on December 27 as there would be no sitting on December 24 and December 26 in view of Christmas.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Utter confusion prevails in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
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.
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 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?'
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.
This is perhaps for the first time the CBI raided a serving police chief of a state.
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.
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.
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 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.
DMK working president M K Stalin led a protest in Chennai and sought promulgation of an ordinance to allow holding the sport.
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 doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances