Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi on Thursday staged an unprecedented walkout from the state assembly following a face-off with Chief Minister M K Stalin over the former's customary address to members of the house in its first session of the year.
Former Chief Minister Panneerselvam could muster only 11 votes, ending the prolonged stalemate triggered by his rebellion.
By itself the event may not amount to much, but what it indicates is a changing, assertive, public doesn't want to be taken for a ride anymore.
Stung by cross-voting of seven dissident Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam members of Legislative Assembly in Thursday's Rajya Sabha polls, party founder and Leader of the Opposition Leader in the assembly Vijayakant on Friday charged them with betrayal as they were given a political identity by him.
Vijayakanth was unwell for quite some time and his wife Premalatha took over the reins of the party days ago.
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
As the Opposition leader in the state assembly, M K Stalin has to fend off the ruling AIADMK on the one hand and prevent the re-emergence of a non-Dravidian Opposition on the other -- but his immediate challenge comes from within, in the form of his wheelchair-bound octogenarian party leader and father M Karunanidhi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Cracking the whip on the dissidents, Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam headed by actor Vijaykant has suspended seven of its legislators, who did not vote for the party's nominee in the recent Rajya Sabha biennial polls, for alleged anti-party activities, party sources said on Saturday.
In yet another instance of his confrontation with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam dispensation in Tamil Nadu, Governor R N Ravi on Monday concluded his customary address to the House within a few minutes, making certain remarks over the content of the address that were 'expunged'.
Though another 75 candidates are in the fray, the Elangovan-Thennaruasu fight has become a prestige battle for the DMK and AIADMK, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president M K Stalin was on Tuesday unanimously elected as legislature party leader and he is to be sworn-in as chief minister of Tamil Nadu on May 7.
Neither the ruling DMK nor the fractured AIADMK Opposition anticipated that an assembly by-election would put them both to test, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The others have been looting the people all these years. If you don't do that, you can do a lot for the people,' says Tamil star politician Vijayakanth.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
Recalling that he had already informed the House that the government would not make any compromises in case of allegations of violation of human rights during police custody, Stalin said he had ordered the suspension of ASP Balveer Singh accordingly.
"A stand was taken to seek his (Dhanapal's) removal based on the circumstances at that point of time. The party, however, now feels that the motion was not warranted," Stalin said on the opening day of the assembly session in Chennai.
According to state government sources, not only did the governor insert some corrections, but he also initialled the final draft after those corrections had been made, reveals 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.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami said that the vow taken by AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala has been fulfilled.
The EC had allotted 'flaming torch' (mashaal) election symbol to the Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.
Stalin, moving the resolution, said without giving any reasons, Ravi had returned the Bills, mentioning "I withhold Assent" to them.
The Madras high court on Thursday ordered issuing notice to deposed All Indi Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister O Paneerselvam and his relatives on a criminal revision case initiated on its own, relating to their discharge in a disproportionate wealth case by a trial court in 2012.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam legislator and the party's youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin was sworn in as minister in Chennai on Wednesday by Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi.
He also alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to create a Delhi-like situation in Puducherry and take power away from an elected government.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
'He has to listen to his body and his mind and he decided to leave politics.'
The interim order was passed on petitions by Stalin and Dinakaran loyalist MLA P Vetrivel.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Friday assured the state assembly of appropriate legal action on the allegation of sexual harassment of women students at Kalakshetra Foundation, an institution under the Centre's ministry of culture.
AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa is all set to return as Tamil Nadu chief minister for the fifth time following her acquittal in the disproportionate assets case.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The meeting of the newly-elected MLAs to elect the legislature party leader, the second within three days, reportedly saw exchanges on who should lead the party in the House with one section pitching for Palaniswami and the other for coordinator O Panneerselvam.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sharad Pawar on Friday evening announced that he was not stepping down as the president of the Nationalist Congress Party.
Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan has been given the additional charge of Puducherry.
Assembly Speaker M Appavu said leaders of the two AIADMK factions submitted him 6 letters, including 4 from Palaniswami, asking for separate seating arrangement in the Assembly for their respective members.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Sharad Pawar on Thursday said his decision to step down from the post was taken for the future of the party and to create a new leadership.
The Congress is likely to get 11 Rajya Sabha seats in the upcoming election cycle with some of its top leaders, including P Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh, eyeing another term.
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