Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
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.
According to results officially declared so far by the State Election Commission, of the total 5090 ward member posts in panchayat unions, the ruling AIADMK and its allies have won 1,528 ward member posts while its arch rival DMK and parnters bagged 1,895 posts.
According to the analysis, there has been a 55 percent increase in the number of MPs with declared criminal cases since 2009.
The Congress accused the BJP-led government of "destroying parliamentary norms" by ignoring the claim of Suresh, a eight-term Lok Sabha member, to the post of the pro-tem Speaker.
The work on seat sharing with other allies will begin from Thursday, he told reporters.
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.
Alagiri said he was doing all this to "save" the DMK following the demise of Karunanidhi.
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.
He said that Stalin has come a long way from organising youth under the party in his younger days to moulding himself as a future leader of the DMK.
NEET is a court-ordered examination, supposedly aimed at meritocracy. However, over the past years when the incumbent Narendra Modi government at the Centre began implementing it, it took on political and casteist colours, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the BJP, Telangana is a sunrise state in the South, while Karnataka is a southern success despite the ups and downs.
Interestingly, Soundararajan's resignation comes on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an election rally in Telangana's Jagtial and a roadshow in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore.
The party did not formally assign any reason for relieving him from the position.
Tamil Nadu has been reeling under acute water crisis stress for the past several months as Chennai's Porur Lake, one of the main sources of water, has reached its lowest level.
The INDIA bloc has 95 MPs in Rajya Sabha of which 45 were suspended on Monday.
"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.
Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday launched a Rs 225.86 crore welfare assistance scheme here for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees living in camps in Tamil Nadu and alleged that the previous AIADMK regime was not concerned about them.
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.
But not for too long, as TTV Dinakaran can still play spoilsport, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin said the DMK was a movement that protected women's rights and Radharavi's comments were not acceptable to it.
Sibling rivalry between Stalin and his elder brother M K Alagiri came to the fore recently, when the latter claimed that true loyalists of Karunanidhi were with him.
The DMK has allocated 10 seats to Congress, 10 seats to other alliance partners and kept 20 seats for itself.
The assertion came amid a political row after DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin blamed Sanatan Dharma for promoting division and discrimination among people and said it should be eradicated. Also, DMK leader A Raja reportedly said Sanatan Dharma should be compared to diseases such as AIDS and leprosy that have a social stigma attached to them.
Anything can happen, says a young Congress leader.
"I myself come from a non-Hindi state of Gujarat. If some people want to do politics, it is their choice," Shah told reporters in New Delhi.
Issues such as seat sharing and being part of the DMK led government were not a priority now and that the main goal was to ensure that DMK comes to power.
Alleging that Sanatana Dharma is against equality and social justice, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam youth wing secretary and Tamil Nadu Youth Welfare Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has said it should be eradicated.
A political realignment seems to be on the cards in Tamil Nadu, with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam reaching out to its former leader and Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam founder Vaiko.
The exit polls on Saturday predicted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance winning most of the seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka in the Lok Sabha elections and the Congress not putting up a good show.
Protests were held across Tamil Nadu with raising of slogans-- "Vendum Vendum Kudineer Vendum" (we want water) and "Edappadi Arasai Kandikirom" (we condemn chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy's government).
The bench said it has to balance the equity and it was not against any policy of the government or the scheme.
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.
A number of leaders from Tamil Nadu, including 15 former MLAs and an ex-MP, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in New Delhi on Wednesday as the ruling party looks to strengthen its presence in the southern state in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The 94-year-old leader is currently being treated for fever due to urinary tract infection with intravenous antibiotics and fluids.
Moderate to high turnout was recorded in 13 assembly constituencies across seven states where bypolls were held on Wednesday amid sporadic incidents of violence in Uttarakhand, Bihar and West Bengal.
However, the tilting factor still remains: Can the rivalling 'Modi brand' of 'soft Hindutva' and 'hard-sell nationalism' garner more votes for the NDA in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
If the already demoralised Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, beaten worse by the shocking parliamentary poll debacle in May 2014 thought that the political set-back suffered by rival All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalithaa Jayaram, in the light of a Bangalore court ordering a jail-term for her in September was a boon for their leadership, it's not to be.
Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam President M Karunanidhi turned 90 on Monday with scores of party cadres celebrating the occasion by bursting crackers and distributing sweets across the state.
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.
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