Former Chief Minister Panneerselvam could muster only 11 votes, ending the prolonged stalemate triggered by his rebellion.
If Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai bought it in 2015, did he get prior approval from the Union home ministry, and did he include it in his annual wealth returns, sections of the media want to know. N Sathiya Moorthy on the curious case of the 'Rafale' watch.
On Tuesday night, the Tamil Nadu chief minister decides that enough is enough, and throws a challenge to Chinnamma.
The infighting in the AIADMK has made it weak on par with the DMK and other parties, says R Rajagopalan.
If not for Palaniswami, it is hard to guess if the AIADMK would have been able to garner 33.3 per cent vote share as against the DMK's 37.7 per cent. AIADMK won 66 seats, its allies Pattali Makkal Katchi and Bharatiya Janata Party five and four seats respectively and proved yet again that the western region was its fortress.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
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.
'When someone gives you one kilo of gold you have some obligations to them'
Normalcy was returning to Tamil Nadu on Sunday, a day after sporadic violence erupted in several parts of the state in the wake of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's conviction in the disproportionate assets case.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said his government has always taken care of the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils and 'consistently' flagged the issue of their rights with the leaders in the island nation.
The Palaniswami camp on Friday got a jolt when one of its MLAs R Natraj, a former state DGP, said that he would vote against the chief minister's motion of confidence.
Palaniswami and Paneerselvam joined to oust Dinakaran and EC cancelled R K Nagar by-election.
'Did you not see it on TV?' 'He blessed Sasikala and comforted OPS.'
62 candidates vye for Amma's mantle in the Radhakrishnan Nagar assembly by-poll in Tamil Nadu, but who will fortune favour?
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.
From leading the team that arrested Uma Bharti to exposing V K Sasikala's privileges in prison, the 42-year-old IPS officer is not scared of anything.
'The BJP doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
There is a hidden hand behind the political developments in Tamil Nadu...
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.
With faction bosses not seeming to control anyone any more, can the BJP count on the AIADMK for the presidential polls any more, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Whatever the circumstances the cadres will not let themselves be seen as challenging 'MGR's symbol'. It's an emotional identification for most of them, and many consider it an 'eternal sin' for them to defy 'Two Leaves', says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dinakaran said he was revealing the information now since Panneerselvam was being critical of him in public fora, even while making efforts to mend fences.
The ruling faction's announcement came two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi rang up Palaniswami to seek his party's support.
Jayalalithaa's nephew Deepak Jayakumar claimed that the late AIADMK chief had left behind her properties to him and his sister.
Former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam has urged All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLAs to vote against the vote of confidence sought by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, stating they should not aid a "family rule" and supporting the motion would amount to betraying late party chief Jayalalithaa and people who voted for party.
Madurai (South) MLA SS Saravanan alleged that party MLAs "were being detained" at the Koovathur resort and claimed he had given a slip by wearing a "t-shirt and Bermuda (shorts)".
If something stands out in the one year since Jayalalithaa's passing, it would be her famed leadership qualities and her ability to reach out to the party and the people above the second line, and also the state administration, to the exclusion of all the rest. Only Indira Gandhi had achieved it all in her time, and no other leader, possibly excepting Prime Modi Modi, could hold a candle to that, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Your strike rate is very important when it comes to seat-sharing.'
In what can be called as a major hint towards sewing up an unprecedented merger between two warring factions, the Sasikala and the O Panneerselvam groups of the All Anna India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam met on late Monday night in Chennai.
For the AIADMK's cadres, it is much more than an election symbol, they believe the party's electoral chances rest on owning it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Will the AIADMK acknowledge the role of CAA and the anti-CAA protests, both inside the state and outside, as among the causes for the current electoral reversal, as many in the party now want? It is unlikely to be so, but then the pressure will increase on the leadership to reassess the BJP alliance at one level and the 'blind support' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial policies on the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The fracas between Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his deputy O Panneerselvam on Monday over who will be projected as the CM candidate in next year's assembly polls not only points to a possibility of another vertical split in Tamil Nadu's ruling party but will also come as sweet music for the opposition DMK which in the past stood to gain from the AIADMK's squabbles, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the Tamil Nadu electorate having given him an unprecedented mandate that had eluded his father the late M Karunanidhi, Stalin has to prove his worth, ensuring at the same time that the Dravidian drag on the AIADMK's side does not open up space for the BJP to make inroads in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Without strategising together, Jayalalithaa's successor, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, and M Karunanidhi's son-cum-successor, M K Stalin, have used tough-talking on seat-sharing with allies, to replace charisma that they purportedly lacked, during the run-up to the assembly polls scheduled for April 6, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A day after the Tamil Nadu assembly speaker disqualified 18 MLAs from the AIADMK's V K Sasikala-T T V Dinakaran faction, Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar spoke to a couple of MLAs.
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.
'I can only say that I will put my best foot forward,' Deepa Jayakumar tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar.
'The BJP has become a reasonably larger force in Tamil Nadu in the last two years.'
The interim order was passed on petitions by Stalin and Dinakaran loyalist MLA P Vetrivel.
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