Kharge said the leaders of INDIA parties have come together as democracy is under threat under the Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
Anything can happen, says a young Congress leader.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
The MPs suspended on Tuesday include National Conference's Farooq Abdullah and Congress leaders Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari.
The 65-year-old leader's ascent as the DMK chief heralds a new era in the Dravidian party, making him only the second man after his father to be elected as party president.
'This is total fraud. You are showing me the slip of my vote but not counting it so this is fraud.'
"The result of the RK Nagar bypoll is an outcome of the tacit understanding between DMK working president M K Stalin and Dinakaran," Panneerselvam and Palaniswami said in a joint statement on Sunday night.
The Tamil film industry won't forget Vijayakanth's large-heartedness, how he took care of fellow industry persons, male or female, rich or poor, young or old...recalls N Sathiya Moorthy. How he sent money quietly for the family of a stunt artiste to meet his funeral expenses, how he always ensured that all female co-stars, including junior artistes, had secure accommodation on outdoor shoots, and how he would always the first to rush help if anyone from the fraternity was in distress.
The 67-year-old gave the example of two neighbouring states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, to buttress his point on why seat-sharing pattern of the INDIA bloc will vary from state to state.
Disapproving the remarks made by Tamil Nadu minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Sanatan Dharma', Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray leader Sanjay Raut has said it is not right to attract the anger of the entire country and that no one agrees with his statement.
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
Rail and road blockade, demonstrations, and impromptu rallies by the Opposition marked the shutdown in the state affecting normal life to some extent.
The DMK parliamentary party appears to be a house divided, reports R Rajagopalan.
Stalin described his party-led coalition as the "Secular Progressive Alliance."
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Udayanidhi has handed over to the BJP one real issue to draw the line between it and the INDIA alliance, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Throwing his party's weight behind the Congress to ensure an Opposition win in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Wednesday said arguments by some favouring a front without the grand old party should be rejected.
The campaign will reach a high decibel level next week when BJP state chief K Annamalai is expected to take up a blitzkrieg campaign against the ruling DMK.
Will Foreign Minister Mr. Jaishankar please refer to the RTI reply dated 27-1-2015...The Reply justified the circumstances under which India acknowledged that a small island belonged to Sri Lanka," Chidambaram said.
The tough question before the DMK and its leader MK Stalin now is, what should their response be if sounded out for an alliance by the BJP for or after the next parliamentary polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Speaker, responding to pleas by DMK's KN Nehru, who was not among those suspended since he was not present in the House on August 17, made it clear that there was no reviewing of his decision to suspend the agitating DMK legislators for a week.
Soon after the suspension of 33 opposition Lok Sabha MPs, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said all democratic norms have been thrown into the dustbin by this "autocratic" government and it has shown zero accountability towards Parliament.
The Union Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, which will replace the ordinance promulgated by the Centre on May 19.
Opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam members were on Monday evicted enmasse from Tamil Nadu Assembly with a couple of them being handed a two-day suspension for disrupting the proceedings.
Stung by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam move to suspend him, former Union Minister M K Alagiri on Saturday charged that democracy was dead in the party and questioned why no action was taken against his younger brother M K Stalin's supporters for pasting posters hailing him as future party president.
Tamil Nadu assembly on Wednesday witnessed uproarious scenes when DMK members strongly protested remarks made by a ruling AIADMK member apparently ridiculing Leader of Opposition M K Stalin, culminating in their en masse eviction and suspension.
The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the Constitution amendment bill to restore the power of states to make their own OBC lists after a thaw in the logjam as Opposition parties backed the legislation but demanded the removal of the 50 per cent cap on reservation, with many of them also calling for a caste-based census.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
Today, with the 'Cauvery row' in full flow, the DMK has managed to wrest the 'pan-Tamil initiative' for the Dravidian polity as a whole. What more, the DMK has also stolen much of the 'Tamil thunder' that had belonged to peripheral pan-Tamil groups over the Jallikattu protests in January 2017, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
The man who threw the petrol bomb was immediately overpowered, they said
He will be remembered for mustering the courage to take on former chief ministers and the state's political heavyweights M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa in the political arena on his own terms and also hold his own against them.
The participation of the two veteran actors assumes significance in view of their recent statements suggesting that they could be joining politics.
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Banerjee feels that as long as Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, she should be the undisputed leader of a united front of opposition parties, reports R Rajagopalan.
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