The moot point is if a re-energised Jayalalitha will order snap polls when the Opposition is in disarray and her own political starts are on the rise, says N Nathiya Moorthy.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's celebrations on amma's return are peppered with possibilities, probabilities and problems of one kind or the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
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 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.
MK Stalin's ruling AIDMK rival does not thankfully face such problems as he did, but its problems could be worse if saner counsel does not prevail between now and the assembly polls, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
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 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
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said the government has no other option but to extend President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir as the Election Commission wants to hold assembly elections in the state by the end of 2019.
AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam is said to be upset at his son Raveendranath Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP, being denied a ministerial chance for a second time in a row, beginning with the formation of Modi 2.0 in 2019, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
When M K Stalin attended the Jayalalithaa government's swearing-in and the chief minister thanked him for the gesture, a new page was turned in the state's political lexicon, reports B Srikumar.
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.
Narendra Modi's meeting with J Jayalalithaa in Chennai has set the rumour mills abuzz. Will the Tamil Nadu chief minister ally with the BJP ahead of the 2016 polls, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'I had to submit my resignation from the BJP after just two weeks because they were very regressive.' 'There was no space for a free thinking individual.'
'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 provisions of the said bill are nothing short of draconian and promote gross incompetence and mockery of professionals currently working day and night and sacrificing their youth for this broken system," said the protesting doctors.
R Rajagopalan, who travelled through Tamil Nadu, says it will be an election of many firsts.
A day ahead of the nationwide protests planned by the opposition against demonetisation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the move and warned unscrupulous people using the Jan Dhan accounts of the poor to launder their black money of strict action.
In a major boost to Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, three All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Members of Parliament, state School Education Minister K Pandiarajan and veteran AIADMK leader and spokesman C Ponnaiyan on Saturday joined his dissident camp.
'A person who came to take care of Jayalalithaa's personal needs slowly took control of her political life.'
The problem for OPS lies in the fact that most party MLAs believe Sasikala's clan was the force behind their obtaining the party nomination as much as it was Jaya's charisma that won them their seats in the May 2016 assembly polls.
The jallikattu issue has revived pan-Tamil political sentiments especially among youths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A full one year after Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on the night of September 22, 2016, followed by long hospitalisation and death on December 5, Tamil Nadu continues to be rocked by instability and non-governance of every which kind, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The two rival factions of the AIADMK may have merged, but there are problems staring at it on all fronts -- governmental, political, electoral and organisational, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
After a 6.5-hour debate, the upper house clears the bill. Amit Shah said the bill is not anti-Muslim and Indian minorities have nothing to fear from its passage.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'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.
'Nobody is telling you not to speak or learn your mother tongue. But making other languages an emotional issue is wrong.'
The Rs 89 crore question before Tamil Nadu now is what shape a central intervention would take, and if there would be any role whatsoever for acting governor, Ch Vidyasagar Rao, in it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
With Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, results for 51 assembly and two Lok Sabha bypolls spread across 18 states were declared on Thursday. Here are state-wise results of the bypolls.
And in the midst of it all, Jayalalithaa keeps the guessing game going, on her returning as chief minister and on calling for early assembly polls, 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 AIADMK is convinced that the BJP will remain an electoral burden for a long time to come, beginning the Lok Sabha polls next year, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
The imapsse continues over issues like bank scams and special status demand for Andhra Pradesh.
In writing to the government for a change in the law, the Election Commission has actually acknowledged the future possibility of countermanding polls to curb the use of money power, says N Sathiyamoorthy.
'The Chennai floods in particular clearly show there is a nexus between corruption, disaster, destruction and death.' 'Urban development in India is the source of all corruption.'
The contemporary problem with the BJP in Tamil Nadu is that it has been trying hard to package the DMK especially as anti-god and anti-Hinduism, and seeking it to link to Periyar and M Karunanidhi, and by extension to Stalin, the latter's son and successor to the party mantle. Their hope was to consolidate the perceived 'pro-god, pro-religion votes', which they saw returning to the fold post-MGR, post-Jayalalithaa. But no such substantial vote-bank existed even in Periyar's time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
The judiciary has often shied away from contesting the speaker's right or that of the legislature, but it has not always avoided taking a close look at the processes employed and arrive at conclusions that are binding on all concerned, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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