Modi has the ideas for a new, hopeful India, and an idiom in which to sell optimism to voters. But he doesn't yet have the team for it, and soon enough, questions will begin to be asked by an impatient, non-ideological, I-don't-owe-anybody-anything generation of Indian voters, says Shekar Gupta.
Given the subdued pre-poll voter-behaviour in the state over the past couple of decades and more, and the inability of individual political parties to cobble together an alliance and announce candidates, or both, to launch grassroots-level campaigns early on, close fights with landslide victory is an equal possibility, N Sathiyamoorthy.
The twin announcements have virutally cleared the decks for the merger of the two factions.
The deadlock over finalising alliances has had a deleterious effect on the candidates of every party. The delay in alliance conclusion has also sent out confusing signals to the grass-roots who are unsure who will be their party candidate, or which party within an alliance will be allotted a particular constituency, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The man who led this journey is 50-year-old Kalanithi Maran, chairman and managing director of the Sun Group.
R Rajagopalan, who travelled through Tamil Nadu, says it will be an election of many firsts.
The DMK combine has won 37 of the 38 LS constituencies in Tamil Nadu, and bagged 13 of the 22 assembly bypolls. What swept away the AIADMK-BJP alliance in the southern state was not dravidian ideology but job loss and graft bias, 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.
As political rivals clamour to retain their pan-Tamil credentials, the BJP may use the 'nationalist' card to even the odds in its favour, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
With Tamil Nadu's electoral fate decided, all eyes would now veer round to the pending 'disproportionate assets case' against Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court, and Stalin's own future within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan said the vessel had more than 32,000 tonne of oil and has been emptied.
Will the 2016 assembly election be Stalin's to lead the DMK in?
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam might have been pushed into a corner to come up with a prohibition policy of its own, if only to create the right atmosphere for talking about an Opposition coalition in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy
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.
The presence of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa was not the only reason why Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa stayed away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Even as political parties in TN have decided not to field a candidate against CM Jayalalithaa in the assembly by-election, the BJP's ambivalence has shown up once again.
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