The Election Commission on Monday allotted 'flaming torch' (mashaal) election symbol to the Uddhav Thackeray faction of Shiv Sena, rejecting their claim to the 'Trishul' citing religious connotation.
Stalin, whose party has a strength of 89 members in the 234-member house, claimed his efforts were not aimed at taking DMK to power nor was there any intention of enjoying posts.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Whenever they are announced, the bypolls to 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be a mini referendum on the state government's performance. It will also be a do-or-die battle for the ruling AIADMK, opposition DMK, as well as the rebel AMMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"It is me in the video, but the voice is not mine," Saravanan told reporters.
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.
Terming Saturday as a "black day" for democracy, the senior DMK leader urged all those who wanted to "remove" the "anti- democratic" All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government to join him.
4,809 members of the electoral college comprising MPs and MLAs set to elect the successor to incumbent Ram Nath Kovind.
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Former chief minister of Puducherry V Narayanasamy on Wednesday cautioned the voters against supporting the alliance comprising the Bharatiya Janata Party, AINRC and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in the coming assembly polls as these parties would have no qualms to merge the Union territory with Tamil Nadu.
The ruling party's decision to serve 'disqualification' notice to three party MLAs when polling for four more assembly by-elections are due for May 19 may have been taken to keep the flock together post-results, rather than seek to lose more than already, but it has sent out alarming signals in a state ruled till recently by an Iron Lady, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Will acting LG Soundararajan invite N Rangaswamy to form a government or recommend President's rule, so close to the assembly election, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP doesn't have to do anything except nudge the AIADMK in one direction.'
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.
Good intentions and elaborate roadmaps apart, there is an urgent need for the Tamil Nadu chief minister to come up with branded schemes like MGR's meal scheme, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
One more ruling Congress legislator A John Kumar, a close confidant of Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy, resigned his MLA post on Tuesday, in yet another jolt to the ruling Congress dispensation ahead of the assembly polls due in few months.
CPI-M veteran Pinarayi Vijayan, who led the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the April 6 assembly polls, on Thursday took oath as chief minister of Kerala for the second time along with 20 ministers.
The BJP will be the obvious gainer while the DMK will lose a major chunk of its vote bank.
'The financial situation of Tamil Nadu is much worse than it was in 2016.' 'The finance minister's is a horrendous job.' 'I am certainly not going to ask for it.'
The apex court, in a plethora of verdicts, has given varying judicial opinions on Speakers' powers ranging from refusing to intervene in the matter to assuming the role of the Speaker itself and going to the extent of disqualifying lawmakers under the 10th Schedule of the Constitution.
The Bills adopted in 2017 for the same purpose during the AIADMK regime did not get the President's assent.
Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien said the situation in Bihar is one of the reasons behind the Parliament session being cut short by the government.
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
The stage is set for the battle of ballots in the biennial election to fill up six Rajya Sabha vacancies in Tamil Nadu on Thurssday, an event that will see voting after a 17-year gap.
"Stalin, who has the qualification to sit in the Main Opposition (possibly as its Leader) after DMK won 89 seats, was given seat among the crowd whereas Sarath Kumar was seated in the front row," Karunanidhi said in a statement.
The by-elections to 18 assembly constituencies will decide if the ruling AIADMK remains in power or not.
Stalin said that even in Gujarat the vice-chancellors are not appointed by the governor but the State.
'The people of Tamil Nadu are fed up of these people, whether it is Panneerselvam or Palaniswami.'
Party leaders list three clear positive outcomes -- an activated Congress which has hit the ground running leaving the past inertia behind, an interactive top brass which is directly engaging the people, and a mobilised organisation which was dormant for many years.
Ending the more than a month long suspense over cabinet formation, five ministers, including two from the Bharatiya Janata Party, were inducted in the Chief Minister N Rangasamy-led National Democratic Alliance cabinet.
'Sometimes we use political pressure and sometimes political acumen to get what we want.'
Every vote now counts in the Tamil Nadu assembly, as the ruling party is walking on a wafer-thin majority. The Opposition DMK-led combine has 98 MLAs on their side, and with four others who had won on the AIADMK's 'Two Leaves' symbol in 2016 but do not belong to the party, per se, playing hide-and-seek with the party leadership, Dhinakaran with two or three other MLAs can give sleepless nights for the ruling party than their post-verdict celebrations may seemingly indicate, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's arch rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and main opposition party in the state Assembly Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam are finally set to fight it out to bag the sixth seat in the June 27 biennial elections for the Rajya Sabha from Tamil Nadu.
The chief minister still has time to repair the damage but he will have to act all-round, both at the government and party levels, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Both are mature enough to realise that a break will not benefit either of them and both will be losers'
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
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.
There will be no second term for President Kovind and no elevation for Vice President Naidu.
The Tamil Nadu assembly on Tuesday once again adopted the anti-NEET Bill, returned days ago to the government by Governor RN Ravi, with the ruling Dravida Munentra Kazhagam and principal opposition All India Anna DK reaffirming their opposition to the test.
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