'Sasikala went to jail in a 19-year-old case.' 'Dinakaran went to jail in a case of attempting to bribe the Election Commission.' 'How can you link the BJP to these two cases?'
All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Jayalalithaa on Monday accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre and the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu of not doing anything tangible to solve the Sri Lankan Tamils issue and warned them of the 'consequences'.
Rajinikanth's visible electoral strength is his constant mouthing of the term, 'aanmiga arasiyal', or 'spiritual politics', without he having to explain what it is. By implication, it is all that what Dravidian politics is not about. It may imply anti-corruption, being against Periyar's forgotten anti-god, anti-Brahmin dictum, but also ends up covering 'Tamil pride', which begins with Tamil language where, as a Maratha from Karnataka, he has more to defend himself. However, in the contemporary national context, aanmiga arasiyal is seen as a front for Rajini to market his brand of 'soft Hindutva' but identified even more with the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in political terms, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Barring one of the earliest surveys of the kind in the country, in 1989, none has proved right in Tamil Nadu's case, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The union government was taking effective steps to rid the country of corruption and nepotism, he said.
Opposition members tried to corner the government in both the Houses over the Supreme Court decision that states are not bound to provide reserved seats for the SCs, STs and OBCs in appointments and promotions.
'Having learnt her lesson in popular democracy, Jaya would become more populist than the DMK and more so than the imagery that mentor MGR had created in the Tamil voter's mind, both as an individual and as an elected ruler.'
Film director and leader of Latchiya Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party Vijaya T Rajendhar on Tuesday resigned from the vice-chairmanship of the Tamil Nadu Small Savings Advisory Committee in order to "mobilise support for Ealam Tamils on the Sri Lankan issue."
He said most of the states where farmers were committing suicide were being run by Congress or its United Progressive Alliance constituents. "We (NDA government) had left the country in a healthy economic state. Now things are bad," he alleged.
Inaugurating the Defence Expo in Thiruvidanthai in Tamil Nadu, Modi said the Defence Procurement Procedure was revised with many specific provisions for stimulating growth of the domestic defence industry.
"If the coalition partners had to support all the decisions of the ruling party, why should they have separate parties? They could as well dissolve their parties and merge with the DMK and sing peans in its favour. This is what the DMK is expecting from its allies."
In Tamil Nadu politics J Jayalalithaa is the queen of all she surveys today, But there are some ground realities that may still dent her high ambition. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt's fascinating new column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India.
Former Union minister K V Thangkabalu, a senior Congress leader from Tamil Nadu, has decided not to contest the Lok Sabha elections.
"Alagiri came to my house on January 24 and complained regarding Stalin and troubled me and used harsh words. Alagiri told me Stalin will die in three months. No father can tolerate such words against his son," Karunanidhi said, explaining.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'