Expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazahagm leader VK Sasikala on Tuesday arrived in Chennai, 23 hours after her departure from Bengaluru, where she had served a four year jail term in a corruption case and also underwent treatment for COVID-19.
A resolution to this effect was passed at the party's general body meeting in Hyderabad, party sources said.
Satyavrat Chaturvedi, chairman of the select committee on Lokpal, did not inform many of the Opposition parties about the meeting to be held on Monday
In yet another attack on arch rival M Karunanidhi, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday vowed to put an end to the 'arrogance of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and uproot the party' in the next Lok Sabha polls.
Distribution of sweets, welfare assistance and blood donation by party workers were among the highlights of celebrations of the 93rd birthday of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam patriarch M Karunanidhi on Friday.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday said he has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the state.
Contrary to expectations, not a single DMK functionary was present.
The ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu on Saturday said its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party will continue for the 2021 assembly elections and exuded confidence it will win a hat-trick poll next year.
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.
When Mr Rangaswamy began making threatening noises (he could have swapped the BJP's six MLAs with the DMK's six and formed the government with the outside help of the Congress and Independents), the BJP immediately named nominated MLAs.
Confidence vote stalled after ruckus by opposition.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A relatively quiet foray by actor Vijay into politics through the TN rural local body elections last month has captured the attention of many, reports Shine Jacob.
'Both the AIADMK and DMK are promising prohibition, but where is the road map? Jayalalithaa is not giving a blueprint for her phased prohibition and Karunanidhi is not talking about a draft bill for the same. This is nothing but empty election rhetoric.'
The prime minister pointed out that such infamous incidents occurred during the Congress rule.
The Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation challenging the Tamil Nadu government constituting a panel on the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), saying it was not contrary to the orders of the Supreme Court on the matter.
'Tamil Nadu will never allow the Centre's three-language policy'
The Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Tamil Nadu unit of the Congress are gearing up for the assembly polls in the state, scheduled to be held next year. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the Congress' political emissaries from Delhi are in constant touch with both the DMK and the AIADMK.The first meeting to discuss pre-poll arrangements was held on Saturday, when Home Minister P Chidambaram met DMK chief Karunanidhi.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
In the unlikely event of the BJP-NDA losing all five states going to the polls in February-March, the Presidential electoral college numbers could be significantly altered, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
R Rajagopalan on why September promises to be a crucial month for Tamil Nadu.
'Both are mature enough to realise that a break will not benefit either of them and both will be losers'
'With the deaths of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the BJP and Congress thought that they had a chance.' 'They have conceded that power is with the Dravidian parties.'
Bettering the promise of monthly payouts to homemakers by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the DMK, Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam on Friday assured Rs 3,000 "value rights assistance" to them in its manifesto for the April 6 assembly polls, but maintained it was not a dole.
Both the BJP and the Congress have banked on new and young faces, some of whom have been nominated by the parties for the first time.
While critics and protestors have multifarious arguments to offer, the defence of CAA has been uni-dimensional and uni-focussed as has been the case with most policies of the Modi government and the political positions of his party. But to be drawn into an issue that has assumed more than local and national dimensions, Rajini has knowingly or otherwise, taken the plunge and in favour of the BJP -- or, so it has come to be seen, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'With its vote bank is intact, the PMK, though a smaller party of Vanniars, was able to twist around major parties like the DMK and AIADMK, negotiating with both before settling for Chief Minister Edapadi K Palaniswami's side.' 'There is a lesson in it for regional parties in other states as well, on how to dominate the national parties with a committed vote share of just 7 to 8 per cent,' says R Rajagopalan.
Weeks ahead of the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, V K Sasikala, expelled All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and close aide of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, on Wednesday announced that "she will stay away from politics," but would pray for the "golden rule" of the late party supremo.
'If the EPS government falls, Sasikala will return. If EPS wins, he will become an indispensable leader and Sasikala will not be able to return.' T E Narasimhan reports.
V K Sasikala, late J Jayalalithaa's confidante would return to Tamil Nadu on February 7 from Bengaluru and a grand welcome from party cadres awaited her right from the state's border, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary T T V Dinakaran said in Madurai on Wednesday.
The legislators moved out of the resort as it was already booked for the weekend, sources said.
In Muthuvel Karunanidhi's passing, Tamil Nadu has lost the last of its Titans.
The case of the two Shiv Sena factions for legitimacy and the party symbol, 'Bow and Arrow', is now before the Election Commission. Whichever way the EC findings go, the other can be expected to move the Supreme Court. They would need a final verdict before the parliamentary polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
There will be 2,364 counting halls as compared to 1,002 halls in 2016 in 822 assemble constituencies, a more than 200 percent increase, in view of the COVID guidelines, according to the Election Commission which had drawn flak from the courts over the conduct of polls during the pandemic.
The DMK has been alleging that the AIADMK government was being controlled by the BJP government at the Centre.
More than the traditional Dravidian political rivalry that's now on display, it's boiling down to father-son one-upmanship within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
There will be no second term for President Kovind and no elevation for Vice President Naidu.
R Rajagopalan predicts that Tamil Nadu won't have single party rule for the first time in its history.
The former union telecom minister in his 'interim explanation' said he had not spoken anything 'obscene' or which would lower the dignity of women and motherhood.
Though EPS has sworn peace for now, or so it seems, his camp is said to be considering the possibility of calling an early meeting of the party's general council, to get a mandate in his favour before things went out of control. Ground-level indications are that OPS had lost his limited base, which alone had forced him to patch up with the other, reportedly at the instance of the BJP ally at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
